As A Nara
by bcgcdak
Summary: Uzumaki Naruto died the day after he was born. In his place rose Nara Naruto, second cousin of Nara Shikamaru. This is his story. AU On Hiatus until at least May 2014.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N So I've had this story floating around in my head for a few weeks now and I finally decided to write it down. It is my first story so please excuse any mistakes. As of now it is also not beta'd. As for update dates, I can't really promise anything. I wrote this first part while on vacation but I don't know if I'll have the time once I'm back to update frequently. **

**Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto, wish I did**

"words"

'thoughts'

**TAILED BEAST**

* * *

Uzumaki Naruto died the day after he was born. In his place rose Nara Naruto, second cousin of Nara Shikamaru. This is his story.

Hiruzen sighed heavily, "Damn it Minato. What the hell do I do."

Mere hours after the Kyuubi's attack and he was already behind his desk, almost as if he had never left in the first place. The beast had been sealed within Minato's son, but before he could whisk him away to be hidden word had spread of a new jinchuriki. The council would know who he was by weeks end and once they did the boys future treatment was set in stone. Hiruzen was stirred from his thoughts by the entrance of his Jounin Commander, Nara Shikaku.

Without preamble he stated, "Give him to me." It was more of a command than a request.

"Excuse me?" Hiruzen queried with a single eyebrow raised.

"To raise. He does not deserve the life of an orphan. Not with his burden." Shikaku was calm, unflappable. He knew the best course of action, it was a matter of merely convincing the Hokage. "We will truly make him a Nara. Once he is old enough, chunin perhaps, he will learn of his true parentage and the reason why."

"How would you hide him;a new child that looks nothing like the rest of your clan appearing from nowhere? The secret wouldn't last the month."

"We can make him a true Nara. We have ritual seals, old ones, created long before the founding of Konoha. It will change his appearance, make him look more like us." Shikaku paused, considering his next words. "It will even give him our Kekkai Genkai. Before you get any ideas, it is specific for our clan and used only in the direst of emergencies."

"Truly?" Hiruzen's eyes widened. "To think you had such a thing, hidden all these years." The Hokage closed his eyes deep in thought. Reaching down he lifted his pipe off the desk and set it to his mouth, inhaling deeply. A minute passed, and then two more. Shadows passed across his face. "Very well then. See to it." The room took on an ominous feeling, "Protect him with your life. Heal him when he is hurt. See to it he becomes the best he can be." The words were quiet, the sentences clipped but behind them stood the full authority of the God of Shinobi.

"We will. After all his family has sacrificed for this village we could do no less." And with that statement Shikaku stood and left the room, pausing only to lift a small bundle from a crib near the door.

The Hokage sat alone with his thoughts, feeling every bit of his years. There was potential here though, the council would think him dead, and Naruto would live his life free of the oppression and hurt. As for the militaristic aspect, with their jinchuriki supposedly dead Konoha's position was more precarious than ever. But an infant jinchuriki would not have been much of a deterrent one way or another.

* * *

Shikaku carried the babe straight to the clan estate, unseen an unheard. It would not do for the adoption of Naruto to be known by any but those in the clan. Upon arriving he immediately called for a meeting in the hidden basement. In less than ten minutes the whole clan was assembled, at least those who would be old enough to understand the proceedings.

"While I'm sure you're all finding a meeting like this quite troublesome, especially in light of recent events there is good reason for it. As you all know by know the Fourth is dead. What you don't know is that he had a son." Shikaku paused, he was quite wary of divulging this information but he trusted his clan and knew none would betray the secret. The Nara were a smaller clan, but very tight knit and all quite smart as well.

There was a small stir at such information but nobody had seized upon the relation of that fact and the current meeting.

"As most of you are aware, it is impossible to kill a bijū. The only way to stop it is too seal it. " Looks of comprehension started appearing on the faces of his clan. "He sealed it into his son. It was the only way and he would not have asked another to do so. Unfortunately following his death as well as his wife's death the child has nowhere to go. Already word is spreading of the existence of a jinchuriki and while the will not know his true identity it will not take long for them to figure which child carries such a burden."

A door opened in the background and Yoshino, Shikaku's wife stepped out carrying a sleeping child with a tuft of yellow hair. Some of the less stoic clan members eyes widened alarmingly.

Yoshino spoke up, continuing where her husband left off. "We as a clan will adopt him, perform some rituals to disguise his identity and make him a true Nara. To do this we need two volunteers, a couple would be best."

Without hesitation a young man with the typical dark spiky hair of the Nara stepped forward with a considerable limp, followed only a second behind by his wife. "We can do it, we're perfect for this. We've been out of town for almost a full year searching for additional plants for our medicines. We haven't had time to reconnect with any of our friends because of the attack. It will be easy enough to say we wanted to surprise everybody with our new child."

"Sato, Nanami I was hoping you would volunteer" Yoshino spoke with considerable enthusiasm. "I had thought pretty much the same things"

When Sato was younger he had been a genin with a particularly promising future, only it had been cut short by severe damage to his leg in a incredibly unlucky accident. The medics were amazed they had even been able to save the leg. He had reluctantly abandoned the shinobi lifestyle and picked up medicine creation as a career instead. On one of his earlier trips Sato met a lovely young lady by the name of Nanami. He was entranced by her intelligence even more than her looks and the two had quickly married. They had spent the last few years in and out of Konoha always working on new medicines.

"Do you have the seals ready Azami?" A wizened old woman nodded and began gently unrolling a scroll.

"The Sanka Fuin. It's been years since it was last used. Not since the age of the warring clans." Azami breathed reverently.

It was a large scroll nearly twenty feel unrolled, covered entirely in writing. Yoshino placed Naruto onto the center, then had Sato and Nanami slice their palms and place them on either side of him. She then directed every clan member capable of using chakra to start feeding it into the scroll. A few seconds passed, then the kanji on the scroll began to light up. Slowly at first and then like a wave it crashed down from both ends, slamming into Naruto. Seals began sliding up and down his body, then sinking in and disappearing.

With a huff of exhaustion the shinobi finally stilled their chakra and sat back.

"It's done." Shikaku spoke with a clear note of relief in his voice. "Thank Kami, It's done."

One of the younger members spoke up at this, "But his hair, his eyes, he doesn't look any different. He still even has his whisker marks. Did it not work?"

At this Azami gave a quick laugh, "No it worked, but its not an instant thing. It only works on newborns, there is a window of about a week after they are born and then it's too late. Even then the seal takes time to work, changing DNA is not an overnight process."

The younger shinobi started to look a bit mollified, "How much longer will it take? I mean those marks will be pretty noticeable."

"A few weeks for his hair to change, but we can dye it until then. His eyes may change, they may not. It would be unusual, but not suspicious if they did not. The whisker marks, well who can really say. As for our kekkai genkai, that will take probably three years or so to integrate. It won't just change that though. The Sanka Fuin is a complete joining of his DNA as well as his new parents. There will probably be distinctive traits of both. Our intelligence, his parents sealing prowess and so on."

She paused and gave a short laugh, "Or it could be the worst traits of both, it's a bit of a gamble. But I have a feeling he'll be a lucky one, after all you can only have so much bad luck in one day."

* * *

The Konoha Council was composed of two parts, civilian and shinobi. Originally the council was made up primarily of shinobi clans, giving them more of an incentive to join the village. However once the age of the wandering clans ended and everybody had settled down it became quickly apparent that the civilians that lived and worked in the village were not about to go unheard. The second Hokage had made the provision allowing them a voice in matters not directly concerning shinobi business and for the most part it worked quite well. It became quite apparent during the reign of the third how much power the civilians actually held and how much more they wanted. Much of his time, far more than it should have been, was spent dealing with and appeasing the council for they were able to make life very difficult should they want to. Needless to say it was a strained relationship on both sides.

It was noon the day after the attack before the council was able to assemble. As Sarutobi stepped through the door, the last to enter, he saw the grim faces looking back at him. 'This will not be an easy meeting' he thought wearily. 'Too many dead, too many injured, what the hell happened to my retirement?' He briefly composed himself and took his seat.

"I'm sure it is quite evident why we are gathered here today, we lost quite a lot yesterday but we are not broken. The Will of Fire lives on in each of us." It sounded good, but the words didn't seem quite so sincere to him. Now was not the time for weakness though, so he soldiered on gamely "We lost about ten percent of the village, in property and in lives. There will be a week long public period of mourning, and all our efforts will focus on recovering and rebuilding. Everybody will be asked to pitch in, there is always something we can do. Koharu and Homura will distribute information and co-ordinate that effort," he said gesturing to his advisers.

"Moving onward," he paused knowing what he was about to say would be quite hard to digest. "On the fate of the Kyuubi. Minato managed to seal the beast into an infant." He was quickly interrupted before he could continue.

"Kill it!" One of the pudgier merchants shouted, a look of naked fear on his face. "Kill it before it returns!"

"I can't." The Hokage spoke the words softly, but everybody heard them. "I wouldn't even if I could, no child deserves that fate for something they have no control over. But I can't because he's already dead."

Gasps swirled through the audience, the shinobi side, who actually knew what happened when a jinchuriki died went white. Danzo very nearly had a heart attack.

The Hokage spoke up again, "In your ignorance you called for the very worst case scenario, and now you have your wish. So let me give you a quick lesson. When a bijū is sealed in an infant it creates what is called a jinchuriki. Now here's the important part, when a jinchuriki dies what happens to the tailed beast?" Without waiting for a response he continued, "It doesn't die obviously, otherwise there wouldn't be any bijū left. Instead since the bijū in a being of pure chakra it disperses. Eventually however it will reform and when it does there is quite a good chance it will come back to Konoha and it won't be to apologize."

The merchant who spoke up earlier promptly lost control of his bowels and fainted.

"Now it won't happen immediately, while there is little information on the subject our best guess is that it will take at least three years to reform. Based on the nature of the sealing that the fourth did it may take far longer than that though. This gives us an opportunity to prepare and should it return we will be ready for it. This concludes the part that concerns the civilian council and I thank you for coming." They didn't look happy about it, but the civilians filed out anyway.

It was a measure of the respect that the shinobi had for Sarutobi that they remained silent even after the civilians had left. The Hokage shuffled the stack of papers he had in front of him, skimmed a few of them briefly and then spoke up. "So here is our status right now, there are no imminent threats on the horizon, Iwa and Kumo are still too battered from the war, Suna is technically our ally and has no real need to attack and while the Mizukage is starting to act erratically he has shown no signs of outward aggression. I would however expect that in five years time if we still look weak that the Iwa and Kumo would be quite tempted to try again. This means we need more shinobi and we need a better plan of defense for another bijū attack. Questions before I continue?"

Uchiha Fugaku was the first to speak up, "The Uchiha police stand ready and they will be training far harder than ever before. Also I presume you will be lowering the graduation age?"

Danzo chimed in for the first time, "You always did coddle the kids to much Hiruzen, its about time you changed it anyway."

"Yes well, after the war I had hoped to give everyone a chance to relax. It was a bit much to ask I suppose. For the next seven years as soon as they are ready I want them on a team and doing missions. I'll appoint somebody later. As for dealing with the Kyuubi, we need to strengthen and rebuild the walls as well create a plan of defense. Jiraiya will be here within the week and as the last remaining seal master we have it will be up to him to create the plan. All of you feel free to input suggestions. While he is back we might as well see about upgrading the barrier as well. That's all for another meeting though."

Many of the assembled shinobi stirred uneasily, all thinking along the same lines 'If it was that easy to do, someone would have figured it out already.'

"Last but not least, we need a new jinchuriki." Everybody looked shocked, stealing a jinchuriki was as good as a declaration of war, a war they couldn't afford to fight. "Suggestions?"

"Lets see, One is in Suna therefore off limits. Two and Eight are in Kumo, Eight is the brother of the Fourth Raikage and we don't need the trouble it would cause if we stole the two-tail. Three is the current Mizukage and if we could track down Five we could probably get away with it. Unfortunately it's doubtful we could convince the current jinchuriki to join us. Pretty much the same deal with Four and Six so that just leaves Seven. Troublesome." Shikaku spoke up for the first time.

"That's the way I saw it as well. As far as we know the current jinchuriki is a girl named Fū age seven who lives in Taki. Taki is nominally our ally, and while they are quite weak without their Hero water, getting Fū out of there without Taki's consent would be more trouble than we can afford right now. I'm going to send some shinobi I trust to figure out the situation and see what we can do."

Immediately following the short meeting Shikaku received a summons to the Hokage's tower. Less than two minutes later he knocked and entered into Sarutobi's office.

"It's done then?" Sarutobi asked without preamble.

A short nod, "Yes."

"Good. However that's not the only reason I called you here today. I hate to ask you this, especially with all the work we need done right now but I need you to go to Takigakure. You know why correct?

Another short nod from Shikaku and the Hokage continued, "Take Inoichi and Chouza as well as Kakashi."

The last name drew a slight reaction, "Why Kakashi. He's talented but not exactly what this mission calls for?"

"He needs to get away. Minato was his sensei and practically raised the kid after his father-" The Hokage trailed off, some things were still painful. Sakumo had been a good friend and had not deserved his fate.

"Inoichi and Chouza are the two I would be most worried about seeing through our deception, they spend far too much time with you and know you too well for you to hide his secret for long. Kakashi deserves to know as well. He's a prodigy in every sense of the word, but I'm afraid he'll shut down after Minato's death. If he continues improving he could very well end up on the short list for the next Hokage. We can't afford to waste that kind of talent."

Shikaku gave a grim smile, "I'll make sure he gets through it. About Taki though, what in the world could we give them for a jinchuriki? If it comes down to money, unless we can bribe the leader I don't really see how we could buy her. A jinchuriki can be one of the best deterrents a village can have."

Hiruzen gave a long sigh. "That's the problem. I don't know, it sounded pretty good in the meeting and was probably the only reason I got out of there with no real trouble from Danzo but even then-" He trailed off with a helpless sigh, every year he possessed showing on his face. "I just don't know, but what I can do is give you the authority to make a call. I trust you and whatever you pick I'll back."

Shikaku nodded slowly, his mind already turning over various scenarios. "I'll leave tomorrow." And with that he stood up and walked out of the office lost in his thoughts.

* * *

The next morning Shikaku and his hastily assembled team sped out the gates toward Takigakure. At a decent pace for them it would be a three day trip so they wanted to get an early start. They ran for the next twelve hours then stopped and made camp.

Shikaku gathered his thoughts and called the other three over. In a serious tone of voice he said, "This is an SS-class secret." He paused and saw everybody get very alert. "Minato's son in the new jinchuriki of the Kyuubi."

A startled look appeared on everyone's face, none more so than Kakashi. With all his composure lost he was unable to restrain himself from stuttering out, "He had a son? He's alive? And the Kyuubi? Can I see him?"

"He lives, he was adopted into my clan yesterday. As for seeing him, not yet. It is of vital importance that nobody realizes anything different about him. So give it a month or two and you can drop by." He went on to tell them more about Naruto as well as some of the circumstances surrounding his adoption. Kakashi's entire demeanor, which had been completely wooden for most of the day, finally had some life in it.

It was Inoichi that pulled Kakashi aside after the talk. "Kakashi, I know you're hurting right now, you've lost much for this village. But if you give up now what's the point. It's the fate of too many promising shinobi, burnout. They get tired, get scared, don't want to watch any more of their friends die. The way I see it, there are two ways you can get through all this. Option one is you go ANBU, lose yourself in it. You'll probably even make commander. But that's all you'll ever be. Hatake Kakashi ANBU Commander." He paused while Kakashi looked at him strangely.

"I'm not doing a good job of this am I. ANBU is not a bad thing, Commander is damn impressive. ANBU turns your emotions off after a while. The people who do it for that long are never the same afterward. But you can be so much more. At fifteen you created an A-Rank jutsu. You were trained by an SS-class, son of an S-class. So I guess what I'm trying to say is if you want to keep everyone safe, If you want to keep Naruto safe you need to be a lot more than just ANBU."

Kakashi nodded, if he couldn't protect him openly then the next best thing would be to be so strong nobody tried to challenge the leaf. It gave him something he had lost after Minato's death. A sense of purpose.

The two days sped by and late on the third afternoon of their trip they were escorted into Takigakure.

Of the four only Shikaku had ever been to Taki before. While it was on paper an ally of Konoha in practice there was no real love for each other.

"State your business." The shinobi in charge demanded.

"We need to see the village leader."

"And we need a reason why."

'Would it have killed him to be polite?' Shikaku thought wryly. "It concerns the jinchuriki or the seven-tails." While he did not really want to talk to anybody but the leader the discussion was going nowhere so he felt it was in his best interest to just say it. What he was not expecting was the response it would get.

"That Demon? What the hell would you want to do with her." Various muttering broke out in the background. Shikaku shared a look with his team. It might just be easier than he thought.

A quick series of signals and a runner was sent for the leader. Meanwhile the Konoha team were escorted to a smaller building off to the side. In about fifteen minutes the leader showed up, obviously not in any rush.

"So what do you want." The leader demanded. He was a tall man, well muscled and he carried himself with a sense of power. For all that though looks could be decieving. According to all the intelligence he had gathered before they left he was at best a mid jounin level shinobi. Additionally he was probably one of the most powerful in the village.

"We want Fū."

"What the hell would you want her for?"

At this Shikaku saw an opportunity, apparently the entire village had given into their hatred so he took a gamble, "Nothing pleasant I assure you. Beyond that I am forbidden to say."

A smile appeared on the leaders face, "So what will you give me for her?"

Shikaku exchanged a brief look with his comrades. Here came the difficult part, the had brainstormed for most of the past two nights and could only guess at what would work. "You're the strongest in your village correct."

The question briefly through the leader off guard. "Yes, I am. What does that have to do with anything?"

"Then the rest of your village is weak. You've grown over-reliant on the Hero water of the village. It may multiply your chakra by about ten times, but it takes your life force to do it and even with insane chakra levels a poor shinobi will grow no more skilled." It was a blatant slap in the face, and not one he would likely take sitting down.

Quite predictably, he did not. He tried to stand and start yelling but Shikaku's shadow restrained him before he could move. "Calm down. It's a statement not a threat. It's also our offer, we will train your twenty best shinobi until they reach ANBU standards or drop." The leaders eyes widened, it was an unprecedented offer, no village gave away secrets such as training methods lightly.

Seeing that he was wavering, Shikaku decided to sweeten the deal. "How about we also donate some money for additional training. To be administered by you of course."

Greed warred with caution, and before he could stop himself he asked, "How much?"

Shikaku named a figure and the leaders eyes went wide. Internally he sighed, 'For the price of an S-Rank mission as a bribe and some training he sells out his village. Although it was probably more money than he had ever had, at the very least the biggest bribe it was still just pathetic.'

Out loud he spoke, "We'll take the girl with us now, send your men in two weeks. It will take time to prepare everything. The money will be sent back with your shinobi."

The leader nodded happily, and sent a man to fetch the jinchuriki. It was nearly thirty minutes before he returned dragging a small girl with green hair. She had a resigned look on her face and seemed to be in pain.

'Monsters. To treat a child this way.' The thought that this could have been Naruto sent chills down his spine.

"Fū. You'll be going with these Konoha shinobi." A brief look of hope flashed across her eyes, "I'm quite sure you'll _enjoy_ their treatment." The sinister emphasis on enjoy crushed that previous spark.

"Thank you for this, but we must be going now." With that he scooped Fū off the floor, slung her over his shoulder and trotted out Chouza, Inoichi, and Kakashi following close behind.

As they left whispers could be heard from the people, "Shes leaving. Oh thank Kami."

The Konoha shinobi carefully schooled their features, or in Kakashi's case his one visible eye, all the while inwardly seething. As soon as they were outside the village they broke into a run wanting to put as much distance between Taki and them as possible.

Four hours later they stopped and made camp, just as it was getting dark outside. Chouza, who had taken Fū after the first hour, gently set her down. He then spoke up, "I'm afraid we owe you an apology Fū, we are not taking you back to hurt you. It was easier to let your leader believe that however. You know what you contain, correct?"

She nodded mutely. He went on to briefly explain the official story of what happened with the Kyuubi and what it meant. She was a sharp girl and easily understood what he was saying.

"It comes down to this. By tomorrow night word will have reached the other countries about Konoha taking you as well as our loss of the Kyuubi. When we reach Konoha however we will take you in through a secret entrance. You'll join the academy and be just another hopeful. Nobody will know what you contain."

"I'll be, I'll be normal." The words came out quietly, with a twisted edge to them. "All I ever wanted to be was normal." Before Chouza could react a small seven year old slammed into him, tears coming down her face. She stayed like that for most of the night. Inoichi and Shikaku had trouble keeping themselves from laughing at his predicament every time they looked at him, while Kakashi just sat and watched.

When they arrived back in Konoha they reported back to the Hokage with Fūin tow. He quickly quizzed her about her training before deciding that she would probably need two years in the academy. The Hokage had someone make living arrangements for her before enrolling her in the school.

**Two years later**

It was academy graduation time and all the students were standing around anxiously. Most were quite young, very few were over 11 years old. The teacher was currently announcing teams. "And team four will be Fū, Uchiha Itachi and Inuzuka Hana. Quite a few of he girls glared at Fū for making it onto the team with the Uchiha's. She barely even noticed, the last two years had the best of her life even though she had been working harder than ever before.

She had asked the Hokage later about learning to use the Nanabi and he said when she reached chunin her would ask Jiraiya to come and work with her.

**A/N So I just wanted to get through all of this to Naruto's part so some of it is pretty short and abrupt. Next chapter will primarily focus on Naruto, as will the rest of the story. He's just a little to young to do anything yet. A lot of this was needed to set the stage for later events. As for following canon, I'll follow when it suits me but don't expect a play by play of the same events with a stronger Naruto. Don't flame but any constructive criticism is welcomed. **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Unbeta'd, please excuse any errors. So I was made aware there is no confirmation that the Nara clan actually have a bloodline. For my story they do, it works out better this way at least in my mind. Otherwise it would just be too easy for every shinobi to imitate the techniques. Sorry this chapter took so long I was stuck figuring out how I wanted the scenes to work. So for the most part I think this will be Naruto-centric. This first chapter was just to set the stage a little bit without having to explain all of what happened later. As of right now I have no pairing in mind for this story. Should I choose to add one it will not be Yaoi nor will it be a harem. I do not think I could write Yaoi and having a harem means it's easy to lose out on character interactions in the pairing, seeing as there are so many girls. Also should I choose to add a girl it will be someone in his age group. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

"words"

'thoughts'

******TAILED BEAST**

Naruto was four years old the first time he saw the perfect jutsu. He was a precocious child, smart as could be but, like all Nara, a little lazy. So when he saw Ensui, one of the older members of the clan, stab through a tree with a shadow he was naturally appreciative. He didn't care about stabbing through a tree, that wasn't that big a deal. No it was the fact that he made his shadow solid that got to him.

Naruto spent the next few hours in a fantasy about doing his chores with shadow arms while he sat and relaxed. 'It would be so cool! I can't wait until I learn that!' Unfortunately when he asked his dad about learning how to he said maybe if he was really good and behaved he would help him unlock his chakra when he was five. Which was almost a year away.

Months passed and he slowly forgot about his perfect jutsu in light of all the work Yoshino put him and Shikamaru through. Yoshino, since she already was teaching Shikamaru, had just added Naruto into the lessons as well.

It was the day of his fifth birthday and Naruto was ecstatic. He had been clothes shopping with his mom for what felt like the millionth time when he smelt the most delicious aroma. Without even pausing to think he took off straight into a small stand.

Not very amused, Nanami had followed as quickly as she could, shopping bags bouncing along. When she caught up she found Naruto happily sitting and talking to a girl several years older than him behind the counter.

"I'm sorry about him, he hasn't caused you any trouble has he?"

"Oh no, not at all. I'm Ichiraku Ayame and my dad, the chef, is Teuchi. Would you like some ramen?"

Nanami turned and saw Naruto bouncing up and down, "Can we? Can we mom? Please? It smells so good." Drool was almost leaking out of his mouth.

"Well since it is your birthday and I haven't had ramen in a while I guess so. But just one bowl, no need to spoil your dinner."

She handed some ryo over to Ayame and only a minute later two steaming bowls of miso ramen came out. With undisguised awe, and not a little disgust, she watched as Naruto inhaled his bowl in less than thirty seconds.

Nanami quickly finished hers, and before he could protest, dragged Naruto away by his ear. "Nara Naruto if you ever forget your manners that badly again I won't let you eat ramen until your thirty!"

A look of horror came over his face, his first taste of ramen was very nearly his last. "I'll be good mom, I'm sorry." He thought quickly, then said, "If we go back now I'll show you I can do better"

Nanami couldn't help but let a small laugh escape, but sternly said "Not likely, maybe in a month or two if your good. Now why don't we head back, I think your dad has a surprise waiting for you."

When they got back Sato took Naruto into the yard behind their house and sat down on the ground. "I know I promised you I would help you unlock your chakra and I think your ready. Now how much do you already know about it?"

Naruto sat and thought for a minute, "It's the energy you use for jutsu. I don't know where is comes from though."

"That's pretty good, especially since you haven't started the academy yet. That will be good enough for now. Once I teach you how to use it, you need to practice with it until you have enough chakra to use for jutsu. Now cross your legs and relax."

Naruto smiled, he was quite good at relaxing. His dad continued, "Okay so this is the hard part, you need to look inside yourself. Find your center, there will be a warm ball of blue energy. That's your chakra. To access it, touch the ball and concentrate on pulling some of it out. Once you do that enough times when it comes time to use it you won't have to consciously access it."

Naruto nodded and closed his eyes. It was hard at first, he couldn't get his mind to clear but he kept trying. About five minutes later he opened his eyes, "I can't do it."

His dad nodded, "Nobody ever does their first try, it took me about two hours to access it the first time and two months of practice before I could use it without meditating."

Naruto slumped, he didn't realize it would be so much _work_. But he thought about all the stuff he would be able to do, how proud his parents would be, and he closed his eyes and tried again.

Almost forty five minutes later he let out a small yell of triumph. Sato smiled at him. "Well done, now here comes the second part." With barely a thought Sato reached out to his chakra, brought it up and flared it. Naruto was watching closely and almost fell over when a slight blue sheen came over his dad. Sato briefly explained how to do it then said, "I flared about the same amount you need to learn our basic clan jutsu and gain control of your shadow. All you need to do is focus on your chakra, then reach out and grab some. Pull it out to the surface of your body. As you get older you will learn to control how much you draw and where you use it. It's how shinobi learn to walk on water and such. Anyway when you can flare enough I will teach you."

Once again Naruto dove into his center, but was much quicker about it. Slowly his chakra became visible, far stronger than the earlier showing Sato did. His dad was visibly surprised, 'I guess the Kyuubi is giving him a little gift, but that means his control is going to be shot to hell. He'll be fighting with that all his life.'

"Well its seems you're going to be gifted in that department Naruto, you very nearly have as much as a full genin." Naruto's eyes got quite wide at that. "Unfortunately that means you will have control issues. There are two basic parts to using chakra, power and control. Typically the more of one you have, the more you struggle with the other. This is not a firm rule, and if you practice hard you should have no problems later on. So, since you don't have enough control to learn our clan jutsu yet guess what you'll be practicing."

Sato went on to explain the leaf sticking exercise, as well as the rock balancing exercise for when he finished the first part. Naruto just sat there glumly, thinking about how long it would take before he learned anything.

* * *

It took six months but Naruto managed to get his chakra control to an acceptable level. Which was good because he was sure if he had to take another month of just sitting around covered in leaves while balancing rocks with chakra he would probably have just given the whole thing up as too much work.

For most other shinobi his control would have been considered excellent, but for a Nara it was only just acceptable. As a clan the Nara tended to have higher control with lower reserves than most, typically because they primarily used their shadow manipulation kekkai genkai which took quite high levels of control to do more than just immobilize the target.

Naruto had been bugging Sato to team him the jutsu for the past week and he finally decided that it was a good time. Sato lead Naruto outside to the training ground and sat him down once again."

"Now the first step in our kagemane no jutsu is to channel chakra into your shadow. Sounds complicated right?"

Naruto nodded.

"Well it isn't too bad. Imagine you are trying to hold onto your shadow just as you would a leaf. Fix your hands into a rat seal and begin."

Naruto nodded again and with a determined look on his face began. The back of his feet started to glow light blue while his face turned red with effort.

"Calm down, you'll exhaust yourself before you get it. Don't force it, let it happen. It's why this takes control not power."

The dark haired boy paused and then started again, but more slowly. Suddenly his face lit up, "It's like there's a part of me that never existed. I can feel it filling up with chakra."

Sato's face shown with pride, "Very good, and quite quickly also. You'll have to keep practicing that until you can do it. Okay that was the easy part, now you need to make your shadow move."

Quickly giving it a try, his shadow started to bulge out on one side before snapping back into shape. With a grunt of frustration he tried again to no avail.

Sato laughed at him before replying, "It's all about control, and that's the only hint you get. Consider it a rite of passage." He got up and left saying as he left, "Good luck."

Naruto only groaned and tried again. His shadow would deform in one spot only for him to lose control of it. It was like trying to flatten a balloon, pushing in one spot made another move. After an hour, with a splitting headache and no chakra left he finally gave up for the night.

He trudged wearily inside and flopped down onto his bed, only to hear the call for dinner moments later. Nanami waited for a moment and then came into his room. "No luck Naru-chan?

He made a face, "No. It's so difficult, I can see why Shikamaru doesn't want to learn it yet."

His mother laughed, "I think that's more about him being lazy than anything else. But I know you can do it, think about what your doing and how it goes wrong. I'm sure you can figure it out. Now get up, dinner's waiting."

The next day saw Naruto out in the training field bright and early. He was once again sitting with his hands in the rat seal focusing on his shadow. 'Well I keep pushing my chakra in one direction and the shadow moves, but then it pops. I wonder what would happen if I pushed it in every direction.'

Putting his thoughts to action he once more focused his chakra into his shadow. Slowly but surely it started expanding outward. 'It's working!' In all his excitement he lost his focus and the shadow quickly fell apart. Without wasting a second he tried again, this time succeeding and enlarging his shadow to several times its normal size. The only problem being it was an exact replica of him, not the thin strand his dad could use.

Naruto started to pull the shadow back in without really thinking about it, focusing more on the legs. His shadow started to deform and he suddenly realized the trick. 'It's so simple, I can't believe it took me this long. I just have to focus on the whole shadow.'

Quickly testing out his theory he turned his shadow into a rectangle, then a perfect circle. Well, almost perfect anyway, 'Ah darn, more control exercises' he thought with a frown. Naruto spent the rest of the day practicing his new technique.

A few days later he felt he had sufficient control to move onto the next step, using his shadow to move somebody else. He also had his perfect target in mind. Today was one of the days he had calligraphy lessons with Shikamaru, after which he usually went for a short run. Naruto grinned, a smile which would have given both his parents chills down there back. While he did not often try to prank someone, when he did it was usually well planned, at least for someone who was only five and a half.

After sitting through two hours of calligraphy lessons quietly with a small smile, something which put Yoshino on edge, he saw they were very nearly done. Slowly he channeled chakra into his shadow and extended a thin line into Shikamaru's shadow. It was a weird feeling, all of a sudden he could feel not only his shadow but Shikamaru's as well. 'Is this it?' He moved his head around watching carefully as his cousin's head moved as well. 'Success!'

Yoshino looked on in amusement seeing what Naruto was doing, as well as a little awe that Naruto had managed such a technique at an early age. Deciding to see what he had planned she spoke up, "Alright I guess your done for the day."

Naruto grinned widely, while Shikamaru, unable to move just looked anxious. "Hey Yoshino-chan me and Shikamaru are going for a run. See you later."

"Okay Naruto-chan see you later. Shika-chan it's good to see you taking an interest in exercise, maybe you should go with him every day. Try to be back in thirty minutes, lunch will be ready." Yoshino laughed to herself while Shikamaru's eyes widened in horror.

Still controlling Shikamaru Naruto stood and ran out the door, pausing only to make sure that his cousin would not run into the wall. He quickly took off at a run, Shikamaru following along. Naruto ran for about eight minutes full out before having to stop, low on chakra. He released his cousin from the jutsu and turned to look at him. Shikamaru immediately collapsed on the ground panting. After a few minutes of waiting for him to get up Naruto walked over and lifted him up.

Shikamaru looked up at him, "So you finally got the jutsu to work, nicely done. But whats the big idea of making me run?"

Naruto laughed, "Well I needed to test it out somehow, plus this is what you get for always trying to fall asleep instead of helping me with the chores."

"I guess that was kinda bad of me wasn't it. I'll try not to as much."

"Thanks, but that's not all. You still have to run home, Yoshino will be expecting you back from your run soon for lunch." With a laugh Naruto took off running leaving Shikamaru sitting with an expression of disbelief on his face.

"This is so troublesome. I can be late and have mom mad at me or I could run back, which would be so much effort. This is too troublesome." He said, before taking off with a slow jog after all he would be back within fifteen minutes but if his mom was mad at him that would last all day. He would pick effort over making his mom mad any day. His mom was scary when she got mad.

Just over ten minutes later Naruto got back to his compound. He opened the door and walked into the kitchen only to find his Dad waiting for him. "So I heard from Yoshino you managed to get our technique down, well done son. I'm proud of you." He briefly embraced his son before taking on a more serious tone.

"What you did, while quite funny, was reckless." Naruto looked at him, confused.

"You have been running for several months now, ever since you turned five. Shikamaru is not in as good of shape as you. While I am sure you did intend to hurt him he could have easily pulled a muscle or tripped and fallen during your run. I also assume this was your first time using it on somebody else."

With a solemn nod Naruto agreed, "I'm sorry I didn't want to hurt him. He was fine, just a little tired."

"I know but you need to remember your actions have consequences. It's very easy to forget you're so young. You act so much older than you really are. Our clan jutsu can be dangerous, especially if used on allies. Now I want you to promise me you won't use it on anybody again until you can control much better , okay?"

"Okay, sure. But how will I learn to control it?"

Sato smiled, "Well I'll help you of course. Learning how to use it was the only part I couldn't help you with. Now do you want some lunch?"

Feeling much better Naruto sat down to eat.

* * *

Naruto was close to turning seven and was getting quite frustrated. He had long since perfected the kagemane no jutsu, even learning to use it to catch animals though quickly he let them go. His dad had taught him the tree walking exercise a few months ago but he was still not willing to teach him any more of the clan jutsu claiming they were not taught until he graduated the academy. So he had stalled, learning jutsu were interesting and Naruto got bored easily enough.

Sato had told Naruto he was to start the academy soon, along with Shikamaru, but it still didn't mean that he would learn any new jutsu. 'It's probably all reading and tests anyway. All I ever get to do is calligraphy, chakra control and exercise. Oh well, it's still the Academy, one step close to becoming a real shinobi!' he thought, with a happy smile on his face.

Still the academy was a week away so he was currently going over the clan library, like he had been for the past several months, hoping to get a clue on new jutsu. "Lets see here, Healing Properties of Common Herbs, useful but no. How about How to Train your Deer? Hmm doubt they would take that well. Maybe Famous Nara of the Past Century? I guess it would be a start, if not at least the herb book looks like it would take a while." Grabbing the books Naruto walked out of the library and down to his hammock sitting down to read.

The week passed quickly and it was time for Naruto to start the academy. He couldn't resist jumping around in excitement the whole time until he left. Nanami and Sato both walked him to the entrance, with Yoshino and Shikamaru in front of them. "Okay this is it Naru-chan. Behave yourself, listen to the teacher and make friends with kids besides Choji and Ino."

"Hai. I'll be good."

"Now why don't I believe that. Go have fun and work hard" his father said with a grin.

Naruto turned around, hugged his parents, and walked forward into the Academy. He was one of the last in the door as the class was nearly full. There were about seventy five kids in his class, the only empty seats being all the way in the back. With no other choice he walked to the back, sitting by next to a kid with a long coat and high collar. "Hi, I'm Nara Naruto." He said waving politely.

"Hello, I am Aburame Shino."

"Oh you guys have bugs right?" Naruto replied thoughtlessly, though he quickly followed it up with, "That's pretty cool, what can you do with them?"

At first Shino was somewhat offended, but as Naruto continued speaking he relaxed happy that his new friend didn't think bugs were weird. "Yes we do, my colony has only recently big enough to start training with them, but I hope to learn more."

"Yeah I really want to learn more jutsu too, they're the best." They were interrupted before the could continue speaking.

"Welcome to the Academy, my name is Umino Iruka. You can call me Iruka-sensei or Umino-sensei. For the next six years I will be your teacher. During this time you will learn how to access your chakra if you can not already do so. You will learn the bushin, kawarimi, and the henge. I will explain more about these later. You will also learn the history of the elemental nations, famous shinobi from each nation as well as the physical side of things. Kunai and shuriken throwing as well as the academy style taijutsu, a building block for most of Konoha's styles. There are ten other classes as well, so we have dedicated instructors for all of the physical things. I am just your classroom instructor. Now lets begin."

While he was speaking Naruto had gotten distracted and looked around to see if he recognized anyone. Ino was sitting next to a girl with pink hair, Shikamaru was already trying to sleep with Choji sitting beside him eating chips. There was a boy with black hair sitting up front wearing a jacket with the Uchiha clan symbol on the back. 'It's probably Sasuke, I heard he was our age. Guess having to memorize all the clans and clan heirs is useful sometimes.' There was nobody else he could easily identify and Iruka-sensei was still talking about the basic shinobi arts, so copying his cousins example he put his head down and listened.

It was about a month later that Naruto found a solution to his boredom. Iruka had been lecturing on the Hokages and was currently talking about the fourth who was Naruto's own personal hero. He had been paying close attention when Iruka said something he didn't quite understand.

"The fourth Hokage's second most famous technique is the Rasengan. From what we know it is a spinning ball of chakra that can cause fatal injuries in most shinobi that are hit by it."

Naruto thought that over for a second before raising his hand and asking, "But Iruka-sensei if it is just chakra how can it hurt you?"

"Good question. Chakra can be used for more than just jutsu, if you know how you can add chakra to blades to make them stronger or sharper. Also a skilled shinobi can push their chakra outward to form a shield if the make the chakra dense enough. It is a form of shape manipulation, something we will cover later in the year. Something like that will exhaust even the strongest shinobi after only a few uses, and as such is not normally used." With that he went on to continue lecturing while Naruto was lost in thought.

After class was over he headed to the Academy library, something he had access to now that he was a student. Naruto had been spending a few days in there every week, quickly getting tired of the slow pace they were taught at. He walked over to the desk and spoke up, "Hello, where can I find books on shape manipulation?"

The lady sitting behind the desk looked down at him and laughed, "You're a bit young for that aren't you?"

"Iruka-sensei talked about it in class when we were learning about the Hokages and I wanted to know more."

"Ha everyone always gets excited learning about them, well let me help you find it then." She expertly led him back into the rows of books before stopping at a section. "These will help you the most, just put them back when you are done." With that she walked off before he could respond.

Naruto grabbed a few books and started to read. "Let's see, shape manipulation is using chakra to change the size, shape, or strength of a technique. Almost all techniques require some shape transformation, but few can master this branch of ninja arts. Once a shinobi has learned nature transformation most put very little effort into shape manipulation. Huh, I wonder what nature transformation is? Oh well I'll look it up later. This sounds like exactly what I need." He read on for the next few hours and was back in the library every day for the rest of the week.

That weekend as soon as he finished breakfast he was out the door and headed to a secluded training spot. He quickly sat down with his hands in a rat seal. 'Lets see so if I want to pick things up I need to make the shadow solid. If I pump enough chakra into it without it expanding that might work.'

Closing his eyes to focus, Naruto started pumping out chakra. Feeling like that was all he could add he opened his eyes and looked down at his shadow. With a frown of disappointment he looked away, it seemed no different than before. Carelessly he spun his shadow in a circle around him, just to make sure he still could with this much chakra. Just as he finished Naruto heard the sound of leaves scraping together which was odd because there was no breeze.

Looking closely he moved his shadow in a circle again, then froze in surprise. As it passed over the leaves they moved slightly. "I did it!" Naruto jumped up and did a happy dance. "But just barely moving them won't be enough."

Sitting down again he pumped chakra into his shadow and with all the skill he could manage, pushed it together into the edges. This time he moved the leaf easily. Imitating Ensui he quickly struck out at a nearby tree, only for his shadow to stop instead of going through. Naruto wasn't discouraged though, it was only his first day with a new technique, he would figure it out soon enough.

Two weeks of practice later and with some effort he could push around items as heavy as his shirt, even lifting it into the air, something he had figured out a week in. He still couldn't manage to punch into a tree but that didn't matter too much right now. 'The perfect jutsu is nearly mine! All I need to do is make more hands and learn how to do it without my hand seal and it'll be done.'

The dark-haired Nara had been considering making more hands for a few days, but it just seemed too easy. With the ease of practice he pumped chakra into his shadow then focused on splitting it in two. His shadow parted cleanly, so he reach out with both shadows to grab some sticks lying around. All of a sudden he felt the drain on his chakra double. Fumbling around, neither shadow managed to grab a stick before they suddenly retracted. Naruto sighed and fell over, almost instantly asleep.

It was several hours later when he finally awoke and looked around blearily. 'Oh that makes sense, twice the shadows, twice the chakra needed to make them solid. The only reason I can even do it in the first place are my crazy reserves. Dad said I'm already past most chunin, it's gonna be scary when I'm older how much I have. Still don't have enough to do this all day though apparently. Looks like I need more practice.'

The next day was chore day, he had to clean his room, pick up his clothes, dust and then go and do whatever him mom wanted. Sitting on his bed he decided this was a perfect time to try out his new jutsu. 'I only have enough chakra to keep the shadow solid for about fifteen minutes, but if I'm quick that should be enough.'

Reaching out with his shadows, he started to pick up the clothes. At first it went rather slowly but he soon managed. 'This is a lot harder than I thought. I bet if I tried to move while using this I would screw it up. That I have no idea how in the world I could use as many arms as I thought I wanted. Oh well, it's something to work on, at least I won't be bored.' He thought with a happy smile.

**A/N: There is a lot of training going on, but I would rather show that than give him all these magical abilities with no background. He will work hard for everything he learns. I won't show all of it, but the important stuff definitely. For the number of students, yeah it's a lot. But based on the numbers of shinobi Kishi has been throwing around in this war I just don't understand how in the world they can do that with 9 graduates a class. Should you have a shadow technique you want him to learn feel free to mention it and I'll consider it. Thanks for reading!**


	3. Chapter 3

******A/N: I have no beta, please excuse any mistakes I missed.**

******Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

"words"

'thoughts'

******TAILED BEAST**

* * *

1 Year Later

The sounds of a fight rang out in a clearing not far from where Uchiha Itachi was heading. A slight frown crossed his face and he sped towards the fight. Within moments he had arrived and what he saw puzzled him. Uchiha Shisui was fighting ten ANBU opponents.

Without pause Itachi jumped forward and called out, "ANBU freeze!" In a normal situation every one of them would have without question instantly stopped what they were doing. In this situation however that did not happen. Half the masked shinobi turned and attacked Itachi instead.

Sharingan spinning wildly Itachi dispatched the first two within five seconds. After all he had not become an ANBU captain at age 13 for nothing. Adjusting their tactics without a word the three masked shinobi spread out and cast fireballs at his position. The blazing inferno where he once stood died down, but before the attackers could move Itachi rose up behind one and stuck a kunai in his neck.

Itachi paused for just a second as recognition hit him. During his induction as an ANBU captain he was briefed on the disbanded branch of ANBU known as Root. They were known to wear plain white masks with no identification marking as well as having little personality. They would complete a mission or die, failure was not an option.

With the knowledge that his opponents would not relent he turned to face them, drawing his tanto. Sparing a glance at Shisui he saw that he had made good use of Itachi's distraction. Three of the Root shinobi were down but there was a long cut down Shisui's arm bleeding freely as well.

"Katon: Hosenka no Jutsu" Small balls of fire erupted from Itachi's mouth separating the masked shinobi. He managed to lock eyes with one, instantly casting a genjutsu with his sharingan. Turning he dashed forward, only to substitute himself with a log as the earth rose up into spikes before him. Without stopping he launched another fireball at the other shinobi, throwing shuriken behind it. As the shinobi dodged the fireball Itachi calmly pulled on the wire attached to the shuriken, changing their path to wrap around the mans neck cutting his throat. Immediately afterward he killed the Root member he had placed under a genjutsu and ran over to Shisui who had similarly dispatched his attackers.

"What happened? Why was Root attacking you?"

"Danzo commanded it. He wants my Mangekyo Sharingan. One of my abilities is Kotoamatsukami, the ability to cast a genjutsu so powerful you can create new experiences and thoughts, make a person do whatever you wish while they believe they are doing it out of their own free will. However it will only work once every decade as far as I am aware."

Itachi's eyes widened involuntarily at the thought of such a powerful technique, but he allowed no other emotion to show on his face. Shisui then spoke up again.

"Unfortunately it looks like they were under orders to kill me if I could not be captured. The last of them managed to poison me, I can feel it moving through my system." He then broke down in a coughing fit, covering his mouth with his hand. Taking it away he looked down to see his hand covered in blood.

"It looks like I don't have much time left so listen closely, you need to take my eyes when I die. Keep them safe, you'll need them once your vision starts to fail." Shisui once again broke down into a coughing fit while Itachi could only watch helplessly. "Next, the coup. Danzo is aware, but I don't think the Hokage knows yet. Stop it, save our clan from their own darkness."

Itachi grimaced no longer trying to keep his composure. "I will, I had hoped they would turn away from this madness but I will do what needs to be done."

"Thank you, I have one final request, hardest of them all. Kill me."

"Why?" Itachi exclaimed with alarm.

"You'll need the Mangekyo, to protect Konoha and our clan. I am already dying, but I want it to be worth something. Please Itachi." The last words came out in a desperate rush.

Tearing streaming down his face he could only agree to his best friends last request. As he sealed up the body to remove the eyes later, the tears on his face turned to blood. His eyes slowly morphed into a three pronged design, curving slightly at the end.

* * *

Arriving outside the Hokage tower Itachi flickered through the hand seals for the emergency report seal on the door, instantly notifying the Hokage that he was here. By the time he made it to his office it was empty and Sarutobi was sitting up straight with a tense attitude.

The instant Itachi walked through the door the Hokage sealed the room and called out, "Report."

"Uchiha Shisui is dead, killed by Root shinobi." Sarutobi face hardened as his mind whirled. Itachi went on to explain the attack as well as the motivations behind it, leaving out any mention of Kotoamatsukami.

After he was done there was a long silence while the Hokage thought. 'It seems I have turned a blind eye for far to long. What you have done is unforgivable Danzo.' Out loud he spoke, "This will not stand. I will need time to work out a plan but Root will be shut down. I always knew there was a possibility that he had not followed my orders but I had always trusted that he would at least have Konoha's best interest at heart"

"There is one other thing Hokage-sama. The Uchiha clan are planning a coup. I don't know when, probably a few weeks from now. They believe they are not appreciated and looked down on."

Sarutobi let out a long sigh, "I cannot say I am entirely surprised, I knew there was something going on but I did not realize the extent of this."

"What do we do Hokage-sama? How do we save my clan?" For the first time the personality of the thirteen year old kid shown through instead of the ANBU captain.

"It's hard to say. I'll gather some more information, perhaps with some concessions they will stop but that will not be a long term solution. If all else fails I make have to make an example of the leaders." Unspoken was the fact that Itachi's father, the clan head, was one of those. "Even then it will there is a good chance that will make it work. Though I am loathe to do so, sealing away the sharingan and banishment might be the last option."

Itachi just nodded solemnly, already knowing what the cost might be.

"Let me do some planning and I will summon you back in a few days. We will proceed from there." Itachi nodded, stood up and left. The Hokage reached into a drawer of his desk and pulled out a crystal ball. "Now just where are you hiding Danzo."

* * *

One Week Later

Itachi and the Hokage had been sitting and planning in his office for almost an hour when the Hokage suddenly stiffened and an ANBU with a boar mask came bursting through the door. "The Uchiha clan is under attack! Our patrol had just come back from a mission and as we were coming back we heard the sound of fighting from the clan compound. The rest of my team is delaying but we are heavily outnumbered. The attackers are wearing blank ANBU masks."

Itachi and the Hokage both paled. Sarutobi reached under his desk and hit a button. "Boar, when Shikaku arrives brief him on the situation. He will take over from there." With that Itachi and the Hokage jumped out the window as a village wide alarm began to sound.

They sped across the village, Itachi just barely keeping up at the pace they ran at. Arriving at the compound they saw fires beginning to spread. Spikes of earth and deep holes covered the ground, shuriken and kunai were stuck into poles, evidence of a great battle having taken place. Blood was everywhere. But the more they explored the more disturbing the scene became. The only bodies they found were those of the ANBU who had joined later.

Itachi was growing increasingly concerned, "Sasuke, where are you?" he yelled out. He quickly checked all the basements and hidden rooms to no avail. Tears were silently rolling down his face as he reported back to the Hokage.

Shikaku soon arrived, followed by Inoichi, Chouza, and a few other jounin. The jounin commander was the first to speak, "I had the ANBU lock down the village, nobody is getting in or out. What is the situation here?"

"Everybody is missing, presumably captured by Danzo. It's time to do something about him." the Hokage responded. He pulled a map of Konoha out of his pocket and unrolled it. Placing kunai to hold down the edges he started to explain his plan. "Here are the three closest Root entrances that I have found over the past week. Shikaku you take the one on the right, Chouza take the one on the left and I'll take the middle. Inoichi, Itachi, you're with me. Once you are inside use your judgment on how to deal with any shinobi you find, but whatever you do don't let them escape. If you find Danzo do not engage, call for me instead. Be wary of traps, it will be heavily fortified underground."

Everybody nodded as he paused to think, then continued, "Don't bother trying to interrogate them, they are unable to talk. They will also not surrender, expect to mercy to be given." With that he stood up, motioned to Itachi and Inoichi, and once again took off running. Shikaku calmly started to give orders to the remaining shinobi, seemingly unflustered about the seriousness of the situation.

Meanwhile the Hokage's team arrived at a small run down shack sitting in front of a forest. It was leaning heavily to one side with peeling paint everywhere. Sarutobi walked forward, and rather than trying to disable to the traps and seals on it he instead gathered his chakra and called out "Doton: Doryūdan". A dragons head made of earth rose and and began firing mud bullets at the shack. Within moments there was nothing left but a tunnel traveling downward into the earth.

He then quickly made a shadow clone and sent it ahead to scout. It returned about thirty seconds later, "The way is clear, the tunnel travels downward for about half a mile ending in a small room with a door. It was guarded by two shinobi, but I took care of them."

With an all clear report they all entered the tunnel. Reaching the room they saw the bodies of two ninja lying in a corner. It was nearly bare of any furnishings, only containing a small table, several chairs, and a couch. Intending to continue onwards the shadow clone made to open the door before bursting into smoke.

Sarutobi walked over and crouched down, examining the door and finding it covered in small seals. "Hmm, it seems to be covered in chakra draining seals which explains why my clone exploded. There are also others that I do not recognize though they are most likely fatal if triggered. It would probably be more trouble than it's worth to try and break it down."

"So what now, we can't stop here?" Itachi asked, a hint of worry creeping into his voice.

"We won't, while I might not have the same mastery of this technique as my wayward student it should get the job done." With that he turned and walked towards the wall, filling his arm with chakra. He swiftly punched into the wall, releasing the chakra all at once. A four foot section of cracks appeared before the thick concrete fell outward. Itachi and Inoichi looked on in surprise.

The Hokage stepped through, quickly followed by the other two. Inside was a large room with a wooden bridge leading across it to a door on the other side. About thirty feet below the bridge were more doors and an dirt floor. At the other end of the bridge stood Shimura Danzo.

He stood with a cane in his hand, bandages wrapping around the top of his head, his right eye and right arm.

The Hokage spoke first, "Itachi go on ahead, try to find out about your clan. Keep your radio on. Inoichi, fall back for now I will need you when this is over."

He then strode forward towards Danzo. "You have crossed a line Danzo, you have gone to far this time. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"You're a foolish old man Hiruzen, too weak to do what is needed. They thought they would rebel against Konoha, I showed them the error of their ways. If not me then who else? You? Worst case scenario you would have killed a few, banished others and then what? More enemies, enemies who know our village well, who know our secrets. It had to be done. I know you Hiruzen, you never were strong enough to do what had to be done.

Internally the Hokage grimaced, Danzo had some good points but the wholesale slaughter of a clan was unforgivable. "You had no right to do such a thing regardless. I am this Hokage and this is my village." He very nearly shouted the last words.

"I had every right, I would do far more than this to keep the village safe. That's always been my purpose, to protect the leaf even when it doesn't want protection." The leader of Root paused, then spoke up again, "What's done is done. The question is what will you do about it?"

"You're a mad dog Danzo, and the only thing you can do with a mad dog is put it down."

"So be it, I'll take that hat from you today as well." With that he activated the explosive tags on Sarutobi's side of the bridge causing a great explosion.

Before he could move the Hokage came flying out of the flames, missing his eyebrows and some singes on his clothes but nothing else. "Doton: Doryūsō." Spikes grew from the ground, flying at Danzo who, with an unexpected agility, dodged them all.

"Fūton: Shinkūha" Danzo waved his arm around and blades of wind flew out towards the Hokage, who managed to dodge, but only just.

"Time to get serious I guess. Kuchiyose no Justu." A large monkey appeared in a cloud of smoke.

"So it has come to this Hiruzen?" the monkey asked.

"I'm afraid so Enma. I will need your staff."

"Of course, do not lose." With that Enma transformed into and unbreakable adamantine staff.

Across the bridge Sarutobi's actions had been mirrored by Danzo, who stood next to his summon Baku, a large tapir. In conjunction with his summon's ability to suck up large quantities of air and expel then Danzo launched a furious attack of wind blades. Deep cuts formed all around the Hokage, but he stood still furiously spinning his staff and deflecting the devastating blades away from him.

When then wind died down he was littered in tiny cuts, but he stood tall and strong. "I guess that wasn't enough for you." Danzo looked over at his summon and nodded as Baku knew what to do. He started inhaling, sucking up all the air in the room, pulling the Hokage straight towards him. Danzo just sat, preparing an attack.

Unfortunately for Danzo, Sarutobi had predicted this strategy. He called out, "Katon: Karyū Endan" and blew out a huge dragon made of fire. The dragon grew to an insane size as Baku sucked all the air towards himself and Danzo. As the resulting mass of fire was dying down, an adamantine staff extended through the flames hitting Danzo in the leg and breaking it badly. Baku was forced to dispel after suffering severe burns.

The Hokage walked towards Danzo, drawing his staff back before once again sending it forward and breaking his other leg. His downed opponent let out a grunt of pain before calling out, "Well I guess this is it. You won't kill me though, you still need me, someone to do the dirty work that you won't."

"You're right, I won't kill you. I do still need you." He replied with a smirk breaking out on his face. "Inoichi, come on out."

Danzo paled, this was not good. Swiftly he reached into his robes and drew out a small capsule. Before he could swallow it a large hand reached down and grabbed his arm, "None of that now. Should have taken those years ago and saved us all some trouble." Enma's arm and head had extended from the staff , in time to stop Danzo's suicide. He had a rather uncompromising stance on traitors, and didn't want Danzo to get away with sharing his secrets.

Inoichi reached the Hokage who currently tying up Danzo with a rope seemingly procured from nowhere. "Help me drag him back to the other room. It's easier when you're sitting down correct?"

"Yes, what do you want me looking for?"

"Find out what happened to the Uchiha, but don't break his mind. After this is over I want every secret he ever had and every action he ever had Root take out of him." The reached the smaller room, ducked through the hole in the wall and placed Danzo down, tying him to the chair. Inoichi sat down in across from him then placed a hand on his head.

After a few minutes he sat back into his chair and looked up at the Hokage with a dark expression, "They are all dead except Sasuke and Mikoto. They are located in a hidden cell on the fifth level. To open it there are several hidden switches that must be triggered."

The Hokage relayed the information to Itachi before paging both Shikaku and Chouza. "Danzo is down and with me. Itachi is heading towards the fifth level, where are your teams?"

Shikaku responded first, "We managed to reach the main barracks and have them under control, there are only a few left. After wards we will head toward your location. Oh tell Inoichi we found one of his down here."

Chouza replied next, disgust evident in his voice, "We found where they are keeping their new recruits. There are twenty-six children ages four to ten. Half of my team is taking them to a safe house now, the rest of us are continuing into the tunnels."

Inoichi shook his head at the news of one of his clan members in Root, it would make him all the more determined to break Danzo. He then resumed his mind reading technique as they waited for Itachi to return.

About fifteen minutes later the Hokage sensed several presences in the next room heading slowly towards him. He quickly ducked out into the main room, kunai at the ready. It was Itachi, carrying Sasuke and supporting his mother Mikoto who was littered in small cuts. He ran forward to help them through the door before helping them sit Sasuke and Mikoto down on the couch. Mikoto gave him a grateful look and pulled Itachi down next to her, hugging him tightly.

"Can you tell me what happened?" While he wanted to give her more time to recover he needed more information about the attack as soon as possible and it would take too long to get everything from Danzo.

"Yes Hokage-sama." Her voice was subdued, it was easy to tell this was a woman who had lost nearly everything. "The clan was all gathered together discussing the," she paused for a second trying to find the right phrasing, "future of the clan. In less than a second about thirty kunai with exploding tags came through the walls and doors. I was close enough and fast enough to escape, most were not. I managed to kill one of the shinobi but they quickly overwhelmed me and tied me up. I saw another shinobi carrying Sasuke come out of our house before I was blindfolded and knocked out. The next thing I know I woke up in a room with my son. They told me they drugged him for now and not to escape or they will kill him."

The Hokage nodded, "Did you see any shinobi besides the ones with the blank masks?"

"No. All I saw was them. May I ask a question?"

He nodded then motioned for her to continue.

"Why did he keep us alive? Why us and not any of the rest. They knew exactly who I was when I was fighting and they didn't fight to kill."

A new voice entered the conversation, "I can answer that, I'm just not sure you want to know that answer."

Mikoto paused for a brief moment, "Please Inoichi, I need to know."

Inoichi ran a hand across his face, rage and sadness showing in equal measure. "To complete the emotional conditioning at the end of Root training they have the recruits kill their partner. It is quite similar to Kirigakure's old graduation requirement. Danzo didn't think Sasuke would bond to any of his trainees so he had a different person in mind. You would have stayed and raised him, following his instructions. He was also considering using you to create more Uchiha."

Her body shook in barely restrained anger. "How dare he," she hissed.

"That's not the worst of it. I haven't found where he figured this out but apparently there is another level to the sharingan. It can only be unlocked by killing a close friend."

"The mangekyo." Itachi breathed out before he could stop himself, "Kami help us if he had access to it."

"You know of this?"

Itachi suddenly got control of himself, realizing he gave away more than he meant to. "Just rumors, nothing more." The Hokage gave him a skeptical look but did not say anything more.

"Alright we have done enough here. Inoichi get Danzo to Torture and Interrogation, then get him fixed enough to keep him alive. I want him surrounded by at least five ANBU at all times." Inoichi voiced him acceptance, stood and grabbed Danzo, then starting walking up the tunnel Danzo's feet dragging behind him.

"Mikoto in light of the situation nothing more will need to be said about your clans activities. Take yourself and Sasuke to the hospital." She winced at his mention of the coup, then nodded gratefully and stood with Itachi's help.

After they had left the Hokage sat down wearily on the couch. "I'm getting too old for this."

* * *

Earlier that Day

After nearly two years of work Naruto felt he had perfected his new jutsu well enough to show it off. Well, that wasn't quite true. He had thought he was ready about a week ago before he realized he did not know exactly how to show it off.

At first he considered using it for pranks but didn't really think that it would do it justice. Next he thought about using it in a sparring match but that was not why he had learned the jutsu. Which brought him to his current plan, acting like it was nothing important.

After waking up and getting dressed he headed into the dining room for breakfast.

"Good morning Tou-san, Kaa-san." He sat down in his seat and opened the book he was holding. It was just some assigned reading from the academy, but it was perfect for this part of the plan. Before his parents could tell him to put the book away he used his shadow to reach out and grab his chopsticks.

Carefully not watching his parents stunned expressions he proceeded to quickly eat everything on his plate. Before he could finish though his dad managed to find his voice again.

"Ano... How are you doing that Naruto?"

"Doing what?"

"Eating your food."

"The same way I always do." Naruto responded in a confused tone before getting up to go outside. Too late Sato realized the mistake in his phrasing.

Shaking his head at his sons antics he looked over at his wife and smiled brilliantly. "He's going to be amazing one day isn't he."

"He is, but he very nearly gave me a heart attack today. Maybe some extra chores are in order?" Nanami responded with a laugh. They both finished their food before Nanami stood to go, leaving Sato with the dishes.

It was early afternoon when she went to find him, tracking him down about a three minute walk from the house. He was lounging in the shade of a tall maple tree, sitting and reading his book seemingly without a care in the world.

"Hey Naruto, I think Shikamaru is supposed to be raking leaves today. Why don't you go help him out." Surprisingly instead of groaning Naruto just smiled enigmatically and nodded. Raking leaves was not physically demanding but it took forever to finish. They didn't call it the village hidden in the leaves for nothing.

Nanami watched him get up and leave before following wondering just what trick he was going to pull.

As Naruto neared the lawn he saw Shikamaru had barely gotten anything done. Slow and steady was his usual style, with an extra emphasis on slow. He just grinned thinking about what Shikamaru's expression was going to look like.

He extended all three of his shadow arms behind him before turning each one at a ninety degree angle at the end. It formed a single line perpendicular to him before he concentrated carefully and raised the whole thing six inches into the air, leaving just enough shadow touching the ground to form a blade like rake. He smiled in triumph, while he had never done such a thing before it was not such a difficult task and the hard part was now over. Now he just had to maintain the chakra in it and it would be fine, and chakra was something he had in abundance.

Projecting a carefree image he pulled out a book and started walking forward, dragging his shadow rake behind him as leaves started to pile up on it. Shikamaru's eyes popped wide open as he watched with more than a little envy. Nanami was startled as well but after his showing at breakfast today she was able to disguise her surprise a little better.

He finished the lawn, typically a six hour job with two people working, in less than thirty minutes. He walked over to his mom who had stayed to watch the whole thing and gave her a grin, "All done, am I free for the rest of the day?"

"I suppose so, but aren't you tired? That must have taken a lot of chakra, I don't know if Shikaku could have even kept up that kind of output."

He gave a quick laugh, "I feel great, I still have a little less than half left." Naruto paused, a quick moment of doubt flickered across his features before he squared his shoulders and asked in a quiet voice, "Why do I have so much chakra anyway? It's not normal and the amount just keeps growing. I'm happy I have so much, but I feel like I shouldn't."

The look on Nanami's face grew in seriousness as he spoke. "I suppose you would have figured that out as smart as you are. I think we need to go get your Tou-san as well. It might be time we had a little talk."

They walked in silence back to the house where the found Sato lying around reading. He took one look at the serious faces and awkward silence between the two and instantly knew something was wrong.

Nanami spoke first, "Naruto was wondering about why he has such large reserves. I'm pretty sure they are at high jounin level right now. Do you think it's time?"

Sato sighed, "I don't know." He turned and addressed his son, "Naruto I'm proud of you. You're smart and mature for your age, but I don't know if you are ready for this terrible secret. We always knew we would tell you but we just had no planned on it being so soon. If we tell you, you'll understand why. Do you want to know, can you handle it?"

Naruto frowned and sat deep in thought. 'Am I ready? Tou-san said it was a terrible secret.' He sat there weighing the options for a few minutes before saying, "I'm ready, whatever it is won't change the fact that we are family. It won't change who my friends are. It won't change me, I won't let it!"

Nodding, Sato acquiesced, "You have heard of the bijū, how one attacked the village nine years ago?" He paused and cleared his throat, before proceeding with obvious difficulty, "It is a common misconception that the Fourth Hokage killed the Kyuubi. A bijū is simply a mass of chakra given sentience, they cannot be killed only dispersed or sealed."

Naruto began to see where this was going to his horror, "Now the Fourth Hokage was a master of seals, perhaps one of the greatest to have ever existed. His Hirashin jutsu worked because of seals, seals nobody has been able to unravel to this day. But during the attack he knew he would not be able to kill the Kyuubi, only seal it." He paused, then resumed, his voice quiet. "To do that he needed to seal it into an infant. He needed you. From what we know he made a contract with the Shinigami itself to create the seal, it is perhaps one of the strongest seals ever used to hold a a bijū."

The room was silent after he finished. After regaining his ability to speak Naruto asked, "So it's just sealed into me, it's not a part of me." Before Sato could respond Nanami lunged over and scooped him up hugging him tightly to herself.

"Of course it's not a part of you. Don't be silly Naru-chan, have you had an urge to destroy and villages lately, eradicate everything in front of you?" She gave a mildly hysterical laugh, "You're just my little Naru-chan. Nothing else." As an afterthought she added, "Besides do you think the Fourth Hokage would have made a contract with the Shinigami for a less than perfect seal?"

Sato moved to sit next to them, joining the group in a hug. After they were done he sat back and gathered his thoughts again. "To answer your original question though, it appears his seal is designed to slowly leak chakra from the Kyuubi into your system. Not enough for you to notice, but enough to increase your reserves. I would think in a few years you will equal the Hokage, after that who knows?"

Nanami spoke up, "For now don't share that knowledge with anybody Naruto. Everybody in our clan who was a genin or older when it happened knows, as well as the Hokage and probably a few other high ranking shinobi. But nobody else does. It is a village secret and needs to stay that way."

"Of course Kaa-san. Thank you for telling me."

A loud alarm began to ring throughout the village, causing all three to stiffen up.

**A/N: So I'm not super happy with the way the chapter turned out, but I couldn't spend any more time on it. As for the fight scenes I hope I did them justice. If you would rather me list the English translation of the jutsu with them the first time I use them instead of at the end of the page let me know. Thanks for reading!**

**Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu - Fire Release: Phoenix Flower Jutsu **

**Doton: Doryūdan - Earth Release: Earth Dragon Bullet**

**Doton: Doryūsō- Earth Release: Earth Flow Spears **

**Fūton: Shinkūha- Wind Release: Vacuum Wave **

**Katon: Karyū Endan- Fire Release: Fire Dragon Flame Bullet **


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Unbeta'd, please excuse any errors. Enjoy and feel free to review.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

"words"

'thoughts'

******TAILED BEAST**

* * *

One Week Later

It had been a village wide week of mourning. The Hokage had spoken the day after the attack, blaming it upon an unmentioned group of traitors. Said group also killed senior councilman Shimura Danzo. Most people in the village saw that it was not the whole truth, but they also knew that it would be a secret. It was a ninja village after all, such was life.

Mikoto had stepped up admirably for the task of taking over what was left of her clan. She had hired several teams of genin to pack all the belongings of her clan and put them into long term storage. Next she had approached the Hokage about selling off her clans grounds, and getting a much smaller estate. He had initially protested but after hearing her explanation of how her family needed a fresh start away from the ghosts of their past he was inclined to agree.

Within the week they had settled into their new grounds which consisted of a seven bedroom house with about ten acres of land around. It was about a fifth the size of the old Uchiha estate. Itachi had backed her wholeheartedly in her plans while Sasuke was withdrawn and sullen the entire time and prone to random outbursts of anger. It got so bad after the fourth day Itachi that picked him up and carried him straight into a psychiatrists office, telling him he would meet with him every other day until the doctor proclaimed it no longer necessary.

The Hokage had been dealing with a different set of problems however, those of Danzos making. Inoichi had been making progress into the mind reading and the more he found the more disgusted he was. Danzo had been in frequent contact with Orochimaru, the snake sannin.

He apparently had plans to take the sharingan out of the dead Uchihas and implant one in his missing eye and several more in his arm. Orochimaru had operated on his arm and added DNA from the first Hokage, increasing his ability to survive with multiple sharingan draining him. The whole situation was quite troubling and Sarutobi was having difficulty just keeping up with all the secrets Danzo had.

At one point Danzo had attempted to prevent an uprising in Amegakure by teaming up with Hanzo. Something went wrong and the whole team was killed. Hanzo fled and was later killed. What was distressing about this was that he had no clue how Hanzo died, and now Konoha was most likely on the bad side of whoever managed to kill one of the most powerful shinobi of an era. It gave him headaches just thinking about it.

There was also the matter of the current Root shinobi who were still living. Nearly all had perished in the attack but a few were missing. One such shinobi was Yakushi Kabuto, currently a genin who had failed the chunin exams three times so far. Of course none of Danzo's men were ever poorly trained enough to fail a genin exam once, much less three times. The Hokage did not know what his motive for doing so was and he probably never would. Kabuto had vanished the day after the attack, not showing up for a mission with his teammates.

He had decided the Root trainee's who had not undergone the final test would undergo intensive psychiatric evaluation. If they were found suitable they would be entered into the Academy and follow the path everybody else took to becoming a shinobi. It was the best he could do for them.

* * *

For Naruto and his family it had been a difficult week as well, one of the largest and strongest clans in Konoha had been killed overnight. While they had no reason to believe any other clans would be targeted, as well as the fact that Shikaku had reassured them that the perpetrators were dead, it was still quite the scare. Naruto in particular had been having nightmares every night.

Nanami was currently sitting beside him as he lay in bed soaked in sweat. He had just woken from another nightmare, the same one he had every night.

"It's okay Naru-chan, I'm here. We're all okay." He reached over and wrapped his arms around her. He sat there hugging her for another few minutes. "We're not going anywhere, nobody is going to take you away from us."

He sat there with a grim look on his face, "I dreamed it was me this time. Well not me, but the Kyuubi. It got loose and came after us."

Nanami was surprised and more than a little horrified, 'Such a burden on him, perhaps we were hasty in telling him.'

"I mean I know it can't do anything, it can't get out but it still scares me. Maybe I shouldn't have asked to know yet, I just feel helpless. Like if it gets out or the seal gets damaged I can't do anything to stop it." They both sat in silence for a while.

"I have an idea. You said you're scared because if something goes wrong you don't know what to do right?" Naruto nodded.

"Well then how would you like to learn fuinjutsu?"

Naruto thought about that for a few seconds, before letting a small smile out onto his face. "I think I would like that." His gloomy demeanor slowly started to fade away.

"I'm glad. Why don't you go get some breakfast and go play outside or bug your father, I need to go find Azami."

After scarfing down some food Naruto ran outside, his cheery personality out in full force. He figured he had some time before his mom would be done so maybe he could finally get his dad to help him with a new technique. After checking his dad's office as well as the medicine room he finally found Sato napping in a hammock near the forest.

Naruto's first instinct was to pull some kind of prank on him but he decided against it since he wanted his dad's help.

"Hey tou-san, wake up!" He yelled out, right next to where his dad was. Fairly predictably he woke up in confusion, forgetting he was in a hammock. He tried to stand up out of reflex and ended up tipping over the side, making the hammock spin around and dump him on the ground. At this point Naruto couldn't help himself and burst out laughing.

Sato lay on the ground trying to act annoyed but even he could admit it was pretty funny. "Well I'm awake now, so what do you need?"

"Ara I had a question about something I read about."

Naruto's dad smiled, he was always happy to help his son learn, "Okay sure go ahead."

"Well I found out about something called chakra nature a while ago. I read there are five types, Water, Wind, Earth, Fire, and Lightning. Every shinobi has an affinity, but I can't figure out how they find out or how they use it. It's so frustrating."

Sato couldn't help but grin at the childish tone in Naruto's voice. "You did a pretty good job figuring all that out. I can answer part of your question but I never got far enough in my career to do more than figure out my affinity. Let me think for a second on how to best explain this." He sat down and put his hands together.

"Okay well to start with there is a type of paper called chakra paper. If you channel your chakra into the paper it will show what kind of affinity you have. As I am considered a civilian I can't buy any but I can get somebody to pick some up soon." Naruto interrupted him before he could continue.

"Why can't civilians buy any, they can buy almost any other shinobi gear?"

"Chakra paper is pretty expensive and hard to get, especially considering most shinobi only ever have to use it once in their career. I guess since it doesn't make sense for civilians to need it they decided to make it a shinobi only purchase." Naruto still looked a little confused but he just nodded at his dad to continue.

"As I said before I know my affinity. When I graduated the Academy my sensei tested my whole team. I have an earth affinity, as does most of the Nara clan. In Konoha the predominate type is fire, in Iwa it's earth, in Kiri it's water, Kumo's lightning and Suna is wind. Overall though wind is the rarest type and Earth the most common."

"Why is wind so rare?"

"Nobody really knows, in most cases kids will have the same affinity as their parents but sometimes it will be different for no apparent reason. It's just one of those mysterys surrounding chakra. Something else you may not have read about is that sometimes people are gifted with multiple affinities. Usually there is one strong affinity and one minor but there may be variations."

"Thanks Tou-san. When I find out my chakra nature can you teach me to use it?"

"I can try. Like I said I never learned to use mine, from what I know it's a pretty advanced skill. Most people spend years mastering their affinity. You also don't need to necessarily mastered your affinity to use elemental jutsu. For example the Hokage can use every type of elemental jutsu even though he does not have an affinity for all of them. Mastering it only makes it possible to do more complicated types of elemental jutsu as well as learn the jutsu easier."

* * *

Naruto was bouncing up and down in excitement, it was just about time for his first fuinjutsu lesson. While he would never be considered a model student he was by no means unintelligent, if something interested him he would put forth all his effort into it. For the past few years he had wanted to learn all about jutsu and shinobi techniques. When the three basic academy jutsu had been introduced it had taken him a month to learn all three and another two months to use them without hand seals.

So now that he had the opportunity to learn something new and useful he could not wait, never mind that he had never even considered fuinjutsu before last week. If a seal could hold back the strongest entity in the world who knows what else it could do.

He was waiting in a smaller room inside one the outlying houses. It was almost entirely bare inside there was only a table with two chairs beside it. Naruto took a seat in one of the chairs and sat there drumming his fingers impatiently on the table.

Twenty minutes passed and nobody entered the room. He was nearly ready to leave, only the thought of trying to explain to his mom why he was not still at his lessons kept him sitting there. Finally, just when he thought he could not longer bear it the door opened and a wizened old lady entered.

"Good your still here. If you had left I would have made you wait at least another year before I taught you anything."

Naruto gaped at her. "What! Why?"

"Because I said so. What do you think is the most important ability for a fuinjutsu practitioner to have?" While Naruto was thinking she shuffled over to the other chair and sat down.

"Maybe Intelligence? Because if they aren't smart they won't be able to learn it?" The old lady gave a small laugh.

"Wrong. It's patience. Fuinjutsu is one of the most dangerous of the shinobi arts to learn. Nearly half of the shinobi that try to learn it at one point or another rush the creation of a seal and it blows up in their face. Do you still want to learn?"

Naruto nodded rapidly, not in the least discouraged by the warning.

"Excellent, it's about time this clan has somebody else who knows the sealing arts. Now it's time for some background. Users of the sealing arts are ranked on a level of one to ten. Given time and dedication most shinobi can reach level four or five. Beyond that it comes down to natural ability, I would be considered a level six shinobi. I have a small natural ability for it but it took me about twenty five years to reach level six and I have not progressed from there. There have only been two known level ten masters in the history of Konoha, Uzumaki Mito and Namikaze Minato, better known as the wife of the first Hokage and the fourth Hokage. Jiraiya of the Sannin is the highest current master we have at a level 8. Beyond that I don't know to much about the current capabilities of our shinobi."

Naruto enthusiasm had not dimmed but he was quite a bit quieter when he spoke, "So it could take twenty years to get good?"

Azami laughed again, she had a fairly easy going personality but Naruto could tell she would be a strict taskmaster, "Not unless your more stubborn than I am. I knew after a few years I would never be a real master but I continued on anyway. I wanted to get as far as I could. Also the fourth Hokage was considered a level ten master around age twenty, but he was a prodigy of which the likes will probably not be seen again."

He looked relieved after hearing that, "So how do you tell the levels apart? Is there a guide or something?"

"Sort of. You are automatically a level one when you start your training, after you can make a basic storage seal you are a level two. You advance based on the quality of seals you can make as well as the different kind. The pinnacle of my ability was the creation of this storage seal." With that she raised the sleeve on her left arm showing a tattooed seal on her forearm. She pressed her right hand to it and with a quick application of chakra several reams of paper and two ink brushes popped out.

"So cool!" Naruto had stars in his eyes as he watched. He calmed down though and asked the obvious question. "Why is that your best seal?"

"It's not your basic storage seal, it reacts only to my chakra as well as being tattooed on my skin. If you were to tattoo a regular storage seal on your skin the first time you used it if you were lucky it would only blow up the body part attached to it." Naruto gulped, quickly burying any thought of trying that any time soon.

"This is part of why sealing is dangerous it takes quite a bit of knowledge to create a seal and apply it correctly." He nodded at that, then a confused look passed over his face.

"Well how come everybody doesn't have one of those, it would be a lot more convenient for people traveling. They couldn't be robbed and stuff."

An impressed look crossed over her face, "I had not expected you to ask that quite yet, well done. To answer your question it's because the person who's body it is on has to be the one to create it. If I were to draw it on you your chakra would react badly with mine and most likely explode."

"Oh darn, that would have been so nice to have."

"Well lets start your lesson." Naruto reached toward the brush and paper when Azami slapped his hand away.

"None of that yet, you need to learn all the basic components of seals first. You probably won't be able to create one for a year or so. Even if you managed to copy a basic storage seal perfectly if you don't know how it works then it won't do anything. You have to understand what is happening at such a deep level that your body subconsciously sends chakra in it the right way for its creation. Once it's been activated usually anybody can use it, at least for basic seals like storage and exploding seals though.

Hearing this he slowly slumped down in his chair, saddened at the amount of time it would take before he could do anything.

* * *

Two years later

Naruto had recently turned eleven and was getting pretty bored. He was still enrolled in the academy even though he had long since stopped learning anything new. Last year he had asked his dad about trying to graduate early but he had turned him down saying that it would be better if he waited. So he waited, he waited a whole year but he was at the end of his patience. Which lead him to his current situation.

His family had just finished eating dinner but before they could get up Naruto spoke up, "Can I graduate this year please? I know I'm ready."

To his surprise his parents were not startled, instead they just gave each other a look of expectation. "You're sure? It's a big step, and it will be dangerous once you are a genin."

He nodded emphatically and began to list off his prepared reasons, "I've mastered the academy jutsu, by the time graduation comes around I'll be at level three for seals, and my chakra control is exceptional for the amount I have. Within the next year I will have finished mastering my earth chakra and my taijutsu is among the top five in my class. There is nothing new for me to learn by staying."

"How about patience?" His father joked. Naruto just gave him an annoyed glare. Trying to appease him he raised his hands and acknowledged his point, "We both know you are ready. You were ready this time last year. You will be leaving the rest of your class behind by graduating a year early, we just did not want you to be too young when you started."

Naruto was pretty much flabbergasted, he had not expected this conversation to go nearly as smoothly as it was.

His dad continued on speaking, "Now the exams are in two months correct?" Naruto nodded. "Good, that gives us some time. You don't need much in the way of skill training but if I'm going to allow you to enter I want to see you in much better physical shape. I know you run quite a bit but your strength could use some work. You will be representing our clan by applying to graduate early and make no mistake people will pay attention even though it is only a year early. So I'll be supervising your workouts after work."

The smirk on his dads face instinctively made Naruto gulp as a bead of sweat ran down his back.

* * *

Naruto was sitting in class the morning of graduation, anxiously awaiting the call for the test. He had handed in the parental permission form for graduating early a few days ago and now was waiting for Iruka to call him up.

"Okay as you all know this is a graduation test day for the class the year ahead of ours. Since they will be occupying the practice grounds our schedule taijutsu and weapons practice will be canceled." A good portion of the class gave out a moan of disappointment, those being the two most popular subjects. "Also from our class Nara Naruto will be attempting the graduation test."

There was a loud murmur of surprise. It was pretty rare that anybody tried to get out early these days, Naruto was the first in the class to attempt to do so. Sasuke gave him a competitive glare, evidently he had been unable to convince his mother to let him try the test early, something he had been talking about for weeks. Iruka continued speaking, "Naruto if you will head to classroom 2C for the test please. Class please wish Naruto good luck on his exam."

Unable to restrain himself Naruto gave a joyful cry as he was released from class and ran toward the new classroom. Opening the door and walking in it was apparent he was one of the last to arrive. It was pretty obvious he was attempting the test early and more than a few people called out at him, trying to get on his nerves. "Hey what's the shrimp doing here. Still a little young aren't ya?"

'I'm not short! I'm average height for my age!' He thought angrily before blocking out the taunts and taking a seat in the back of the room.

The door opened again and a tall kunoichi walked out. She had long curly black hair as well as glasses. "Hello class my name is Suzume and I will be administering the written portion of the exam. You will have one hour to answer as many questions as possible."

Suzume passed out the tests and motioned for the students to begin. Naruto quickly began marking down the answers, noticing just how basic many of the questions were. 'I wonder why they test this stuff anyway? It won't save you in a fight.' Shrugging away his thoughts he finished up and turned the test over before sitting and waiting for time to expire.

After everybody had finished they all filed outside to the weapons range before each being given ten kunai and ten shuriken. They lined up and took turns throwing at the targets. While Naruto would not be considered exceptional in the use of weapons he had practiced enough over the past few years, and the past two months especially, that he was able to hit the target with all twenty weapons.

Of the rest of the students he took note that only a few others managed such a feat. A girl with two buns in her hair managed to take the top spot, hitting dead center with every weapon she threw. Eventually everybody finished up and it was time for what many considered to be the main event, the taijutsu spar.

They wandered over to the arena, a flat empty area some distance away from the back of the academy. There was quite a bit of seating set up for all the candidates to sit on. Another instructor, a large man with a goatee and genial smile, stood in the center of the arena.

"Alright gather round everybody. My name is Funeno Daikoku and I will be the referee for these spars. You will each be randomly paired off against another genin. It is not necessary to win your fight, only to sufficiently demonstrate your ability. That being said bonus points will be given for those who win and the manner in which they do so. The use of chakra is not allowed and there are to be no serious injuries given. Understood?" The last bit was said with a menacing air that had every student quickly nodding in response.

"Oh and do your best, we have a special guest that will be watching the fights. Please welcome the third Hokage."

Wearing his signature hat the Hokage calmly allowed himself to be seen, dropping the small genjutsu keeping him hidden so as to appear from thin air. A bit of showmanship went a long way with impressing kids.

Suitably astounded and more than a bit nervous all the children gathered round to receive the cards with their opponents name on them. Naruto grabbed his and walked back to the bleachers before reading it. 'Hyuuga Neji. Hmm this could be an interesting fight. Lets see, he can't use chakra so he won't be able to block my chakra. I would assume he doesn't know any other styles but since he is so handicapped maybe they will give him an advantage. My best bet is probably going to be surprise.'

The time went by slowly, the record for quickest fight of the day was so far held by a boy with a dark hair and incredibly bushy eyebrows. He had managed to beat his opponent on the opening move by moving at near chunin speeds. It was pretty impressive really.

After what seemed like an eternity of waiting Naruto was finally called up. The instructor took a chance to remind both of them the rules of the fight. "There is to be no use of chakra in this fight. I understand it will be an additional difficulty to you Neji but we cannot afford for him to be unable to use chakra as the ninjutsu tests have not been done yet. You may instead simulate a disabling blow and it will be counted."

Neji nodded at this, it was a fair compromise for him. "Now, begin!"

Before either Naruto could make the first move Neji spoke up, "It is your fate to lose this fight. The Hyuuga are the best taijutsu fighters in the world. You stand no chance. It is my fate to always be better than you."

Naruto scoffed at him, while taunting was a valid tactic it sounded like Neji truly believed what he was saying with all his heart. "Everybody makes their own fate, it's not up to you to decide."

As soon as Naruto stopped talking Neji lunged forward, much faster than Naruto was expecting. It was mostly luck that Naruto managed to block the hand heading at his chest. He forgot that the hand he used to block with would be disabled when hit with a juken strike, and it was to his great annoyance when the instructor spoke up.

"Naruto your left hand is disabled. Continue."

'Crap, how did I make such a stupid mistake?' He did not have much more time to think as Neji was on him once again. For a good thirty seconds it was all he could do to dodge the blows, careful to only block with his disabled hand, keeping it limp.

"You understand now, you cannot win this fight. I am beyond your level."

"Keep thinking that." They spun into a fury of blows again, Naruto pushing himself to the limit to combat Neji. It was then that he found his chance. Neji had become somewhat predictable with his strikes, trying to end the fight in one hit instead of slowly wearing Naruto down. For what he was planning to work though he needed Neji distracted and angry.

"So is this the best the Hyuuga have to offer? I'm not even that strong in taijutsu and I can beat you. I guess it's your fate to lose, not mine."

Neji's face turned red and he became visibly angry, losing the semi-calm look he had tried to maintain the whole fight. "You know nothing about fate." Unfortunately for Naruto his strikes sped up as well.

'Dang it, might have pushed him too far.' Just when he was reaching his limit it happened. Neji overextended on a strike at Naruto's neck. Not wasting his opportunity Naruto quickly grabbed his arm around the wrist before dropping backwards. As his back hit the ground he through his legs up and into Neji's stomach. Pushing with all his might he threw him into the air while keeping a hold of his arm.

Neji slammed into the ground hard, unable to react in time to break his fall. While Neji was momentarily stunned Naruto was able to get on his opponents back and pin him down while simultaneously reaching around his neck. From there had it been a real fight it would have been simple to either break his spine or neck, quickly disabling him.

"Naruto wins." After hearing that statement Naruto went to stand up, but not before giving an ill-advised parting shot.

Whispering under his breath so only Neji could hear he said one simple word, "Fate." He knew it was a cheap shot even as he said it but what Neji was saying struck a deeper chord inside him. 'I should know more about fate than anyone with what I contain but if I can handle it so can he.'

Naruto stood up and nodded to the Hokage and then the instructor, turning his back on the downed Hyuuga in the process. He was too slow to react to what happened next.

Enraged beyond reason Neji had stood up, chakra at his fingertips. He struck forward at Naruto with what would be a crippling blow. As his hand surged toward Naruto's spine, Naruto realized he was being attacked. It seemed to happen in slow motion, he felt Neji coming closer but his efforts to move would not be enough.

The spectators were watching in horror as Neji attacked Naruto. The Hokage was already halfway there but he had been distracted after the fight ended and did not realize what has happening until Neji was already lunging. Just as his fingertips got within inches of his Naruto's back he stopped, frozen.

Everybody paused in shock. At first it seemed like he had pulled the blow before the Hokage looked down. A thick shadow was connected Naruto to Neji, holding him in place. It was hard to say who looked more startled Naruto or the people watching him.

'I stopped him? I subconsciously reached out with my shadow in time? Oh thank Kami!' With a relieved sigh Naruto walked away careful to continue holding Neji.

The Hokage stepped in the arena and grabbed Neji, whose face had gone pale with the realization of what he had just tried to do, in front of the Hokage no less.

"I believe you can release him now Naruto. Impressive skills with your jutsu, sealess and wordless. I would think that should be some extra credit on the ninjutsu test. Why don't you go have a seat."

Naruto could only nod dumbly as he walked over and sat down, his mind still in a fog. The Hokage, still holding onto Neji, walked away and into the Hokage tower which was located right next to the academy. He walked into his office and gestured for Neji to take a seat.

"What you just did was a serious offense, breaking one of the most important laws we have. You attacked a fellow shinobi. While I realize you are not a genin yet that does not make it any less serious. Give me one good reason why I should not ban you from ever joining our forces, much less let you off freely." His tone was dark and serious, looking every inch the dangerous shinobi that he was.

Neji gulped, his composure completely broken. "I-I have no excuse Hokage-sama. I was angry and." He trailed off a confused note entering his voice. "And it was his fate to lose, but he won."

"Fate has nothing to do with it. He got you angry, made you overextend on a strike and took advantage of it. That was quick thinking, if a little dirty. There is only the fate that you make."

"That's not true!" A note of anger entered his voice. "I didn't make the choice to be branded with a seal, a slave to the main branch. They sacrificed my father! You sacrificed my father!" He had gone from scared to angry, his emotions all over the place.

"That's what you believe is it? We sent your father off to be killed in place of the head of the clan. That it was our choice? You're wrong. He chose to go, he chose to prevent a war. Do you even know what happened that night?"

"Yes, a Kumo-nin tried to kidnap Hinata while visiting to sign a peace treaty. Hiashi-san killed him and then Kumo wanted him killed for it. You wouldn't stand up for his actions so you sent my dad off to die."

"That Kumo-nin was the second in command of their forces behind the Raikage. The only evidence we had of his plans was the fact that Hinata was with him. They called it a fabricated act of aggression against them. If one of the other villages were to kill our second in command while signing a peace treaty it probably would not matter what he was doing when killed, it would be an act of war. Do you understand now? To stop another war, one that it's possible Konoha would have lost, he sacrificed himself. He is a hero!"

Neji could only gape at him, not having heard to full details of the incident, regardless of the fact it was his dad that was killed.

"Now I can give you three possible outcomes from this, are you willing to listen?"

Neji nodded carefully.

"Choice one, you leave the shinobi program and your chakra is permanently sealed off. Not really a good option, but you will not go to prison and will be able to live a mostly normal life." Neji shook his head, becoming a shinobi was not an option.

"Choice two, you serve a year in prison and when you are done you are released from our shinobi program but you will still have your chakra. You could always become a missing-nin but I doubt you would last long." Once again Neji shook his head, hoping the last choice was the best.

"Choice three is the most lenient of the three. You have the potential to become and amazing shinobi. If I remember correctly you were in line to become the rookie of the year in the academy. So here it is; you will return to the academy for another year to learn what the will of fire truly is, as well as give your comrades a chance to trust you again. You will also attend mandatory counseling sessions. Should your counselor decide that you are unfit to become a shinobi you will be excused from duty."

An immense feeling of relief spread across his body at hearing the terms, "I choose option three Hokage-sama. Thank you for giving me another chance."

The Hokage finally smiled, "Of course, it is what the will of fire is about. Should your clan give you any trouble about what occurred tell team that the Hokage has made a decision and no further punishment is to be given."

Neji thanked him again and stood to leave, as he opened the door the head of the academy stepped through carrying a large stack of papers. He silently slipped out, not noticing the comical look of horror on the Hokage's face.

"Here are the files of everybody who graduated Hokage-same."

"Thank you, I will deliver the list of teams tomorrow."

* * *

All the graduating student sat in a large classroom, headbands proudly displayed. Everybody was anxious, knowing that they were about to get their teams.

The instructor walked through the door and everybody immediately shut up and sat down. "I would like to congratulate all of you on becoming genin of Konoha. The will of fire burns brightly within all of you. Make us proud. Now onto the team announcements."

A sense of excitement even more overbearing than before filled the classroom. He began listing off the teams. Naruto heard his name, pulling him out of his daydream of his ninja career. "Nara Naruto, Tenten and Rock Lee. You will be team nine. Your sensei will be Maito Gai.

**A/N: Finally graduated! I didn't want to drag on his early career any longer so I skipped some minor filler I had planned so I could get the real story going. I know I spent quite a bit of time of the mechanics of seals but I thought a little bit of background was necessary, and I needed a valid reason of why it is so difficult. Thanks for reading and feel free to review.**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Whew! Glad that's done. Sorry it took so long but I had to do a lot of research into the team and getting Gai's personality was incredibly difficult. So often he is just the comedic relief in stories so to actually try and portray him as a real character is more difficult than I thought it would be. Lee is still a bit of comedy though, he's probably harder than Gai to make more than one-dimensional. More than once I wished I had waited and stuck him with Kakashi. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

"words"

'thoughts'

******TAILED BEAST**

* * *

Naruto's first impression of Maito Gai was that the man was insane. His second impression did almost nothing to change the first, with the exception that was he was very very fast but still insane.

One hour ago

Naruto had been sitting and waiting for the Daikoku to finish announcing the teams. He had briefly reviewed what he knew about Tenten and Lee before realizing that he didn't really know anything. He had seen them do well on the graduation test but that was it. When the instructor was done talking he was planning on going over to them and introducing himself but it seemed there would not be time for that.

"...And finally I would like to congratulate all of you for graduating the academy. Do your best now that you are genin and represent Konoha well. You will have about thirty minutes to get to know your team before your Jounin-sensei is here." Before he could retake his seat the door burst into a cloud of splinters as a green blur flew into the room. A loud yell could be heard.

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!" The whole class was silent, shocked. The green blur turned around and gave everyone a thumbs up. Daikoku just sighed, pushed the shattered remnants of the door off of him and stoodup.

"Gai-san, you are early." He completely disregarded the door, writing it off as a price to be paid when dealing with Gai. He was a very well known jounin and quite infamous for getting overenthusiastic about things.

Gai turned and gave him a blinding smile, "I apoplogize Daikoku-san, I got too excited to see my most youthful new students." Naruto gained a sinking feeling deep in his chest, his sensei was supposed to be named Gai wasn't he. He turned and looked at Tenten who had a similar look of resignation on her face.

Gai continued speaking, "Come my students, meet me at training ground twelve!" With that he disappeared as abruptly as he appeared. Naruto was barely able to see him leave. The moment he was out the door Lee stood and then took off with a yell, intent on following their new sensei.

Naruto stood and walked to the door, as he was about to leave he stopped in sudden thought. He turned to Tenten who was right behind him and asked, "Do you know where training ground twelve is?"

She shook her head, "No and Gai-sensei didn't mention it. Oh great, if we don't know how much do you want to bet Lee doesn't either."

Naruto paled, at the speed Lee had left he was probably half a mile away already and showing up without him was not an option. "Great, just great." After quickly asking the instructor for the location the both left intent on catching up to Lee.

Following him was not as hard as they initially feared, anytime they stopped and asked about a crazy kid with busy eyebrows bystanders could easily point the way. Catching up however was much harder. Lee was fast, Naruto had seen it during his taijutsu match, and it appeared he had great stamina as well. Neither Tenten nor Naruto would be considered slow by any means but it looked like their new teammate had them beat.

After close to thirty minutes of searching and almost five miles of running they found Lee completely by accident. He had gotten turned around somewhere and was coming back the way he came, at full speed. Naruto didn't say a word, before Tenten could vent at Lee he had grabbed him with his shadow, grabbed Tenten's hand pulling her along, and took off at a run to meet their sensei.

'Were going to be so late, and I was supposed to impress my new sensei as well.' After they started running he released Lee and Tenten and started worrying about how long it was taking them to get there. Naruto was quite understandably nervous, even with Gai's earlier showing.

Luckily he seemed not to care, instead he was doing one handed pushups to pass the time.

"Ah my youthful students, you're here." He pushed himself upright and beckoned them to follow him. Naruto took in the scenery as they walked, it was fairly unremarkable consisting of large trees and grass just like the rest of fire country. They stopped in a large clearing perfect for sparring or exercises.

"Welcome to training ground twelve, this will be our meeting place everyday. I am Maito Gai, also known as Konoha's green beast and that guy with the eyebrows." Eerily enough he said it all with a smile, as if not understanding why nobody would want to be known by their eyebrows.

"I would like everybody to introduce themselves, I will start. I am the preeminent taijutsu master of Konoha. My likes are hard work, taijutsu, and the power of youth. My dislikes are riding on ships, having to remember faces, and losing to my eternal rival. My dream is to beat my eternal rival in our competitions."

Lee got an excited look on his face when he heard about Gai's specialty while Naruto and Tenten just shook their head at confirmation of their sensei's sanity level.

"Yosh! I will go next. My name is Rock Lee. My likes are taijutsu, working hard, and spicy food. My dislikes are people who look down on me, and not being able to use ninjutsu or genjutsu. My dream is to become a splendid shinobi with only taijutsu." Gai was nearly in tears.

"What a beautiful dream. I Maito Gai will do everything I can to help you reach your dream! Through the power of hard work and determination you will become a genius of hard work!"

"Gai-sensei!" Lee cried out in thanks. Swiftly interrupting whatever was about to happen Tenten cut in.

"My name is Higurashi Tenten. I was raised by a weapon smith. My likes are interesting weapons, learning to be a strong kunoichi and learning to use seals. My dislikes are people who look down on kunoichi, poorly made weapons, and crazy people. My dream is to become as strong as Lady Tsunade and prove that kunoichi can be as strong as men."

Gai was once again moved by Tenten's speech, but was able to restrain himself better. Naruto was intrigued at the mention of the sealing arts, it was a pretty rare discipline for people to learn. Gai spoke up, "I am quite talented in the use of weapons are well, I would be happy to further instruct you."

That got a huge smile from Tenten, all her previous animosity to Gai forgotten.

"My name is Nara Naruto. I am talented in ninjutsu. My likes are learning ninjutsu, playing a good prank, and ramen. My dislikes are chores, being bored, and people who would look down on somebody for something they can't control. My dream is to be strong enough to protect my clan and family."

For just a second Naruto saw a serious look in Gai's face when he mentioned looking down on people. 'So he knows, and he's not always as insane as he seems it looks like.' The moment passed and Gai congratulated him on a worthy dream as well.

"I am proud to be your sensei. Normally there would be a second graduation exam to weed out those who are not fit to become shinobi of the leaf." Before any of them could cry out in protest he continued on, "I do not think it is necessary at this point. Instead I will tell you why I picked you as a team."

Tenten was to first to say what everybody was thinking, "You picked us as a team? I thought it was the Hokage's decision?"

"It usually is, however jounins who want to take a team can submit a request for certain students. If the Hokage agrees with the reasoning he will put them as a team. Originally I had requested Lee, Tenten and Neji. However with his unyouthful behavior during the spar he was sent back to school for another year. In his place I chose you Naruto."

Naruto was relieved to hear that Neji had ended up back in the academy. He had been unsure about what his punishment would be, and feeling more than a little guilty for the way he goaded him.

"The more I thought about it the better a fit you seemed for the team. In a fight Lee will be a close range fighter, Naruto a mid to long and Tenten can work well at any distance. An example of this in a fight would be Tenten throwing kunai and shuriken to maneuver an opponent into Naruto's shadow, Lee then knocks him out. Obviously there are other ways for you to work together but this is a good example."

The whole team smiled in thought, it really was a good idea. Especially good for taking down somebody at a higher level than them.

As if reading their minds Gai continued on, "Now while I did say there would be no graduation test that does not mean we will not spar. You three must defeat me, I will try an simulate the level of a mid-level chunin as any higher than that would still be beyond you. You have five minutes to prepare, good luck."

With that he took off into the forest leaving them to plan.

It was a sorry sight that came into the clearing two hours later. Bruised, beaten and bloody the genin limped in followed by a nearly immaculate Gai. They had done well to start with, following the plan Gai had laid out for them but their lack of experience became obvious the longer the battle wore on.

Gai had been too fast for Naruto, dodging his shadow at will no matter the combinations and tricks he tried. Naruto had never tried to make it move at such speeds before and it showed. Still whenever Gai would try and close with any one of them the other two would quickly jump in, showing excellent teamwork for a brand new team.

With Naruto unable to immobilize or otherwise restrain Gai they were at a complete loss. Tenten's throws were on target but not nearly quick enough and she telegraphed her motion far too clearly. Lee held his own in taijutsu as long as Gai was distracted but as soon as he turned his attention solely to Lee he hit him at will.

"That was very good for your first team spar. You may all go home and rest for the day, be here at 8 tomorrow morning. I'll have a plan for areas that you each need to work on. Naruto if you will stay here for a moment." Tenten and Lee both got up slowly and left, although Lee was mumbling something about more training. Naruto was a little miffed that he had to stay behind, he meant to talk to Tenten about seals but he could always do that another time.

"Gai-sensei?"

His exuberant nature was gone, replaced by a serious demeanor. "The Hokage informed me about your ah ..tenant. Have you ever had any contact with it?"

Jarred by the sudden switch it took Naruto a second to respond, "No. I didn't know I would be able to talk to it." It was as much a question as a statement.

"The Hokage was not sure, your seal is far different from any that we have ever observed." He paused and intently observed the clearing around them. Apparently satisfied he continued, "This is an S-rank secret but it was deemed you needed to know. You understand the possible consequences of repeating what I am about to say, right?"

Naruto nodded, curiosity outweighing any caution.

"You are not our only jinchuriki. You have heard the term right?" After seeing Naruto nod he continued, "After the Hokage granted my request for a team he took me aside and gave me a long briefing on the whole situation. Basically after you were declared dead it was decided Konoha needed another jinchuriki. A team went to Takigakure and after some talking a deal was cut, we got their jinchuriki for an undisclosed reward. Her name is Fū, she is eighteen and a jounin."

It took a few minutes for Naruto's mind to restart itself after hearing all this. Seeing him gather himself Gai continued, not giving him a chance for questions yet.

"I don't know her specialty, but I do know something else. She contains the Nanabi and can use some of its power. Any more information than that and you will have to talk to her."

"Will I have to learn?" Gai frowned.

"Have to, no. Should you." He paused then changed directions, "What do you know about jinchuriki besides the fact they all hold a bijū?"

"Um well, if they're like me the probably have a lot of chakra. I heal pretty fast also so maybe that. I guess people can be pretty afraid of them since they can be so powerful."

"Not bad, but you need to, as my eternal rival would say, thing underneath the underneath. A bijū can wipe out entire villages if not contained, so a jinchuriki that can utilize that power can surpass all but the best shinobi by default when using it. Though they may not be able to control themselves when doing so, this leads to the fear of them. Some are even known as army-killers."

Naruto interrupted him, "I think I see where you're going with this. Since they are so strong is they can use their abilities it makes your village look stronger and other villages won't want to mess with you."

Gai gave an approving smile, "Good, your thinking. Whether or not you like it you will be seen as a status symbol once your presence is known. This means you need to think carefully about your actions and especially when picking your fights with other shinobi. It's not an issue right now, but if you fight publicly and lose, even without using the Kyuubi's chakra it will be seen as weakness on our part. I know it's a lot to put on you as a fresh genin but it's something you need to think about."

He paused letting Naruto soak in the new information.

"One more thing, most jinchuriki are trained from an early age given the abilities they possess. The Hokage gave you the chance to live in anonymity. We will not force you to learn to use the Kyuubi's chakra but you need to consider the consequences of doing so. I do not believe in hiding the truth from you, you are considered an adult now."

It didn't take Naruto long to make his decision, "I'll do it. I said my dream is to protect my family and if this will help me do so then I'll do it. When do I start?"

Gai gave a laugh, "Excellent, but don't worry about that for now. After we start doing C-ranks we will talk about this again. For now I'll say this, don't try to talk to the Kyuubi and certainly don't accept any deals with it, even if it is a life or death situation." He thought for a second before amending his statement, "At least without talking to the Hokage first."

He clapped Naruto on the back hard enough to nearly knock him over, his exuberant personality back in full force not even showing a trace of the serious discussion they just had. "Now go and celebrate, you're a genin now!" With that Gai took off, presumably to celebrate having a new team or work out, it was impossible to tell.

Naruto just sat in the clearing starting to feel the full weight of what they just discussed. 'I'm going to learn how to use it's chakra? That thing nearly destroyed Konoha.' His earlier fears from years ago were returning, 'No! If I have to I'll beat that stupid fox up until he does what I say. Nobody will control me but me.'

With his doubts under control he forced a smile on his face and ran off, maybe they would go to Ichiraku's for dinner since it was his day? That gave him a real smile, it had been weeks since he had any ramen.

* * *

When Naruto got home he found Azami waiting for him. Normally they would work on fuinjutsu every day after the academy but he had not been sure if the arraignment would continue after he had graduated. As soon as he saw her waiting he turned to go into the room they used for practice but she called out to him.

"Wait Naruto. We're going somewhere different today." Surprised, he followed her as she led him to one of the Nara's training grounds.

"What's going on Azami-sensei?"

"Since you graduated and are doing so well in your studies I thought it was time you learned a technique that will make it safer and easier for you to try new seals."

Naruto smiled happily, one of the reasons it took so long was because he had to repeatedly go over his seals again and again to make sure they were perfect before he was allowed to use them.

"You made level three earlier this year and I would not be surprised if you made level four in a few months. You're learning at a rate none of us had expected, which is not a bad thing at all. However as you go up in levels testing a new seal becomes more and more time consuming if you want to do it safely. So many practitioners turn to this instead, the Kage Bunshin technique."

"Another shadow technique? I like the sound of that."

Azami just laughed, "Well it's called that but it doesn't use your shadow the same way we do. What it does is create an exact copy of you with the same chakra levels. However if it is injured in any way it will dispel."

"The same chakra levels? What do you mean by that?"

"Good, you noticed. That's the dangerous part about the technique, it splits your chakra evenly between yourself and your clone."

"It takes half my chakra? Why would I ever want to use that? Even if I have a ton, people with normal levels would be screwed."

"Well there are some benefits about it, like the fact it can use ninjutsu and is actually an intelligent solid clone."

Naruto was torn, it sounded awesome to use but it was pretty fragile and it took a ton of chakra. Still there was no harm in learning it.

"Okay how do I do it." Azami spent the next hour with teaching him before he finally got it.

She was stunned at the short amount of time it had taken, it was like he was predisposed to learn it. Then again he had the chakra to burn so he could just keep trying to create it until he got it. It had taken her a few days, but she had kept running low.

Naruto stood next to himself grinning happily. He turned and gave his clone a high five, but put a little too much strength behind it and it dispelled.

"Dang. I had just gotten it too."

"How do your chakra levels feel?" She was honestly curious at this point, it had been a while since she had seen him drained.

"Low, like thirty percent maybe less. But that's still way more than most jounin have."

She gave a low whistle under her breath, "Okay that's really good, I want you to make another clone and have it draw up that barrier seal you've started learning."

He looked at her in surprise. It was the simplest barrier possible, forming a fragile square about three feet high. The seal's only purpose was to serve as a basic introduction to barrier techniques. Still he had just started learning it and had only drawn it twice. Both times it was rife with errors.

He did as told though, unsealing the paper and ink he kept on him at all times, something she told him was a good habit to get into, he created a clone and let it go to work. Standing behind it and watching over it's shoulder he noticed it make at least two errors, which meant there were probably four or five he didn't catch. When he went to correct it Azami waved him back.

Frowning he sat and watched the clone finish. She addressed his clone.

"Good, now take the seal and go try and activate it over there." She pointed to a spot about fifty yards away.

Naruto watched in anticipation. As soon as the clone applied chakra he could see the signs of failure before a crackling explosion occurred. It dispelled the clone and scorched the ground for five feet around. The failed seal was a sobering reminder of just how dangerous a poorly made basic seal could be.

As soon as the clone dispelled something else happened, he gained the memories of creating the seal and felt faint traces of heat all over the front of his body. Turning to Azami he saw she was expecting his question.

"Yes, that is the other part of the Kage Bunshin. You gain any memories and experiences the clone gained. It tends to be useful for spying and infiltrating as well. A note of caution though, you had that clone active for what five minutes?" She asked rhetorically.

"That was five minutes worth of experiences, now say you have three clones active for an hour studying. When they dispel that's the same as three hours of studying. How exactly do you feel after a few hours of studying."

He started to understand, "Pretty drained, maybe a little bit of a headache if it's really tough."

"Exactly, you see the problem. Each clone transmits the mental stress they gained as well, so don't go planning to use it for every little thing. I would suggest no more than six clone-hours of use a night right now. You don't have anything that has to be learned right now, so there is no point in stressing yourself."

"What about taijutsu and ninjutsu?"

"It's the same principle, if you are doing something that is not too mentally stressful, like running through kata's, it will be possible to use more clones. However the more you try and learn the more you can hurt yourself so be careful. You can't just pop out a hundred clones and reach jounin level in two months, only thing you would do is put yourself in a coma."

Naruto nodded appreciatively, respecting the power of his new jutsu as well as its inherent dangers. 'I probably ought to stick to the six hours or so she mentioned. Headaches are a pain to deal with. Still they'll speed up the time it takes to work on new seals a bunch, as well as helping practice my ninjutsu. I doubt I'll use them in battle often though, half my chakra is too big of a cost no matter the size of my reserves.'

"Why don't you start right now, it'll give you a better appreciation of how it works than any explanation I could give you."

He swiftly created six clones, feeling with dismay how low his reserves dropped. 'I wonder, maybe if I use these I can finish mastering my earth element before we start mission. As it is I'm probably only like four months away. This will be perfect!'

* * *

That night the whole clan held a large celebration for Naruto. They always celebrated the addition of a new shinobi with lots of food catered by the Akimichi and more than a bit of drinking. Naruto chose not to participate in that however, instead hanging out with Shikamaru and Choji.

All the older members came by and congratulated him as well and Chouza and Inoichi. Shikamaru was a little puzzled why he would want to graduate early and have to work so hard, but Naruto had always seemed too energetic for his own good in his opinion. All that exercising couldn't be healthy could it?

By the time Naruto made it to his bed that night he was exhausted. In addition to the mental stress of the clone training he had been worn out by Gai. Needless to say he was asleep as his head hit the pillow.

He woke up nicely refreshed and ready for his next day of training. After eating and finishing his small chores Naruto set off to meet Gai and the rest of team eight.

He was a little startled to find both Lee and Gai already running laps in the training ground, and even more startled to see Lee in a green spandex suit. Tenten showed up less than a minute after him and echoed his horror. Naruto had somewhat hoped that the more serious Gai he met yesterday would be the norm but it seemed his team was destined to be an eccentric one.

Gai and Lee finished their laps and Naruto and Tenten stretched and limbered up.

With his usual energy Gai burst into speech, "Naruto, Tenten would you like an outfit as well."

They both paled and shook their heads furiously. Unconcerned with their refusal Gai continued on, "Very well, I still have something for each of you. Tenten you are already very strong physically, stronger than Naruto at least."

Naruto would have taken offense being singled out, but he thought about it and it was true. He had focused most of his training on running and ninjutsu.

"However he is still faster than you. I assume that you have access to all the weapons you would need through your family."

"Yes Gai-sensei."

"Excellent. I have a set of leg weights for you to use until you get up to speed, literally. Speed in my opinion is one of the most valuable traits a shinobi or kunoichi can have. If your opponent cannot hit you, than they cannot hurt you. You will run laps every day wearing these, but you do not need to wear them full time. I also have a set of extra-heavy kunai I want you to practice with until you can throw them as fast and easily as regular kunai."

Tenten's face lit up at the new weapons.

"Naruto I also have a set of weights for you, but I want you to wear them full time."

Naruto had a confused expression on his face, he was not against the idea of the weights but he did not see why it was as necessary for him. Gai noticed the confusion and tried to clear it away.

"Since part of your fighting style involves remaining still or within a certain area speed will actually be very important for you. It will allow you to wait longer to dodge as well as moving yourself in position to set traps easier. In our spar yesterday several times you would have had me cornered if you could have gotten into position quicker."

He nodded in acceptance before Gai continued.

"Now as far as learning jutsu you will learn most of it with your clan right?"

Naruto had a bit of a sheepish look on his face, "Well yeah sorta. I kind of developed my own style, since I have much larger reserves than everybody else I was able to train until I can move my shadow like parts of my body. While learning some of their jutsu would be useful, I can replicate most of it on my own once I see it. It takes more chakra the way I do it but I have it to spare."

Gai rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "I see. So are you looking for new moves to incorporate into it?"

"Yeah, mostly. I can already move way easier than the rest of my clan while using my shadow, and I'm still working on getting better with that. Hmm I guess since you guys are my team you probably ought to know how far along my skills are. I can create nearly any number of splits in my shadow, but my ability to easily and individually control them while moving is limited to four sections."

They were all pretty startled at his abilities, as he had not shown it to such a degree yesterday.

"I can move items with them easily, each can probably hold maybe a hundred pounds or so. I've never really tried to measure. Since I reinforce it with chakra maybe?" He trailed off lost in his thoughts. About thirty seconds later Gai cleared his throat bringing Naruto back to reality.

"Oh sorry about that, I do that sometimes when I'm working on something. But yeah I can probably move more than that actually, it'll just burn through chakra something fierce. I'm also pretty close to mastering my earth element."

Tenten cut in, "Mastering? Thats supposed to take years!"

"Yosh! Naruto-san is very strong!" Lee excitedly commented.

Rubbing the back of his head Naruto replied, "Yeah I said I like learning jutsu and I got pretty bored with just my basic shadow jutsu. So I was thinking that I make my shadow solid using chakra right? And I came across this technique Doton: Dochū Senkō which lets you travel underground using earth chakra."

To prove his point he sunk into the ground as far as his knees.

"It's the only jutsu I learned beside the Academy ones and I had to beg my uncle to teach me it and he only did it last year. Anyway so I figured if I master my earth nature and channel earth chakra to my shadow I can make it move through the ground."

He did just that. Since he had not yet mastered creating earth chakra it was a slow process but his shadow slowly sunk into the ground.

"It's really chakra intensive and my shadow is stuck to the spot where it entered right now, but once I learn how to do it quickly and it can move it'll be perfect! I haven't even shown my parents yet, I'm waiting tell it's done." It was obvious Naruto was proud of his ingenuity, and he was well within his rights to be. It was an immense achievement.

Lee recovered from his shock first, Gai and Tenten were still dumbfounded as they appreciated the nature of what he done a little more.

"Then it's decided! You will be my eternal rival! I will be just as strong as you!" Lee cried out happily.

Naruto just sighed, Lee really seemed to be a good guy but he was a little over enthusiastic and being around Gai was not going to help matters.

"That is really very impressive Naruto, I will set aside time each day to help you with any ninjutsu I can. While I do not use ninjutsu very often I am more than capable of doing so and my chakra nature is earth as well."

"Thank you Gai-sensei."

"What about you Lee?" Naruto was honestly curious about his skills, he knew he could not use ninjutsu but he didn't really know much about that.

"I can expel chakra so I can tree walk like the Academy taught us but I cannot manipulate it for ninjutsu. Instead I will be a master of taijutsu! Gai-sensei gave me these weights and this glorious body suit. They are quite flexible." Lee and Gai both stood up to demonstrate and Naruto just managed to close his eyes in time. From Tentens horrified shriek he assumed she was unable to do so.

Cautiously cracking his eyes open he sighed in relief seeing them both sitting back down. Lee pulled back the orange arm warmers to show a large set of weights, at least double the size of Tentens.

Noticing Naruto's look he commented on them mournfully, "I know they are small now, but Gai-sensei says with practice and hard work I will improve."

Deciding they had spent enough time bonding Gai stood up, "Alright it's time to work! Put on your weights and get to training."

It was going to be a long day, Naruto could already tell.

**Doton: Dochū Senkō - Earth Release: Subterranean Voyage **

**A/N: That idea for that jutsu was what really gave me the bug to write this story. I've since come up with a few more than I think will be pretty novel, but it will be at least two more chapters before we see them (I think). It's pretty annoying how little information of any substance there is for Tenten. I went with the Higurashi/raised by a smith idea because it explains the most. Please let me know if you think I'm not doing any other the characters justice and I'll work on that. Also I finally gave Naruto shadow clones, it really isn't a Naruto story without them. That said, CLONES HAVE A COST! He will not be spamming them infinitely for training nor will he use them en masse during a fight. According to canon they take half your chakra to use, correct me if I'm wrong (Please!) I know he used a ton to learn wind chakra but it just seems like too easy of a cop out. Anyway there's a lot more I wanted to include in this but it would get way to long so anyway thanks for reading, if you have any questions about the story I would be glad to answer them. **


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